Philadelphia's Ghost Subway Line that's Rising from the Dead
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2024
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Time Stamps:
0:00 Intro
0:43 Philly Ghost Lines
1:38 Roosevelt Blvd Subway?
3:06 Housing
4:10 Timeline
6:22 What you can do to help
7:20 Outro
Perhaps the most shameful ghost subway in the country is the unfinished New York subway tunnels connecting Brooklyn to Staten Island. They’re still there under Owl’s Head park, abandoned since 1925. Staten Island remains the only borough of New York without subway service. It does have the Staten Island Railroad, but it doesn’t connect to the rest of the system.
tbh as someone who lives in Brooklyn I want to be connected to Staten Island as in little ways as possible.
@@SnakeTheHat Nobody cares about Staten Island, so most people would mostly likely reject it because they are the least important to NYC.
@@SnakeTheHat I know New Yorkers like giving SI a hard time, but it not being connected to the entire MTA makes it easier for city leaders to ignore and neglect, imo. Jokes aside, I just don’t think it’s fair to the people who live there.
Ironically now, Staten Islanders would oppose of it b/c they don’t want certain kinds of “development” and “people” to change the “characteristics” of their neighborhood (all dogwhistles for you know what since SI is as red as you can get in terms of politics).
@@SnakeTheHat Staten Island is Staten Island in large part due to it's poor connection to the rest of the city.
Its a real shame that the Cincinnati subway never came to fruition because of the Great Depression. Despite the tunnels technically being abandoned, the city has to continually maintain the tunnels so they don't collapse right underneath the city. At that point if you're already using manpower and resources to maintain these tunnels, why not just complete the damn thing and have a functional subway
Cincinnati’s, and the abandoned Rochester subway are two of the worst losses of the earlier 20th century.
I could be wrong, but isn't there some issue regards the I-75 now blocking its right-of-way out of the city centre? I have no idea how they'd get around that without NIMBYs screaming the city apart
This is correct. 75 goes right where it would continue out of a tunnel I believe
Ahh so fun to explore in 1987. I loved the fallout shelters and decon showers.
Now i’d be a terrorist. Sad indeed though.
The tunnels are still in use to a degree-water mains run through them.
I vaguely recall that even had they been completed, their geometry had problems, like curves that were too tight or something similar.
Still a huge missed opportunity, though I am even more upset to this very day about the failure of MetroMoves.
I rented apartments in NE Philly for 3 years and the BLVD was inescapable (most major commercial development is around it, sometimes it just is the most direct/fastest route anywhere) but no matter how I was using it, crossing on foot, driving the entire length, riding a bus, I always felt like I was like roulette with my life with the way people drive there. A subway line would be such a major win for the city
It's a 12-lane expressway through a residential area.
Yes there are speed cameras that are extremely strict and financially painful, but it's designed like an expressway with no traffic calming considerations at all.
"no matter how I was using it, crossing on foot, driving the entire length, riding a bus, I always felt like I was like roulette with my life"
As someone's who's always lived around the vicinity of the Boulevard, oh my god this.
@@blackman7437 I always wince a little bit when I see people crossing the Boulevard on a red light. Quite a bad way to take your life into your own hands.
Ever turn left onto the BLVD from grant ave? Such a shit show!
The same people who could care less about your life would now be the assailants on the subway...I live in the Philly suburbs...I used to love Philly and would go downtown every weekend to South St. or Rittenhouse Square, but I only go once or twice a year now bc the city has literally become a Russian Roulette scenario just to walk from a restaurant to a few different bars. Larry Krasner has single handedly destroyed this city. I am a CC permit holder and always carry in Philly...I just think that I would eventually end up in the news paper if I frequented this crime ridden sh!t hole.
I drove the Roosevelt BLVD daily while I was a student going to and from Philly hospitals for internships, etc. I say without a single iota of exaggeration that I would roll up my windows so I could intermittently just scream at the top of my lungs inside my car while I was on that hellish, absolute curse of a road. I would have taken a metro/subway in a heartbeat to avoid it, no matter the cost.
Roosevelt Blvd = Autoban, sans responsible drivers. I think RB is one of, if not the most, dangerous 'Boulevards' in the country. I live in the suburbs, and I can always tell a Philly driver up on 611 or Street Rd...
Only road in the world where you can see a new car, upside-down in a tree, every week.
You could have taken Septa from Bridge Street, the Broad Street Subway from Fern Rock or Regional Rail, but, ah you really didnt want to get out of the car did you?
Wake up babe, new armchair urbanist vid just dropped
literally what i said to myself before clicking on the vid 😂
Yes honey.
We all know 90% of people watching this are forever single
@@theautistictransitfan Ha, I wish I could get my wife to stop going on about YIMBYism and urban renewal projects.
I’m a daily commuter in Philadelphia who lives .1 miles off of Roosevelt Blvd. A Blvd. line would be life changing in terms of my commute. Your research for this video was excellent.
5:20 I lived in Elkins Park, a short walk to the train station there, until 1989 when I moved 1000 miles away. In the mid-1980s, completion of both the Center City commuter tunnel and the airport rail line allowed a one seat ride between home and airport, in adequate comfort and speed. Thank you Mayor Rizzo for your wisdom and foresight.
Thank you Alan. We have many similar style Boulevards/Stroads here in the midwest and it drives me nuts at how poorly designed most of our roads are.
they are designed and built to be improved continually ie employment
When it comes to gaining widespread support for a transit project, it's all about raising awareness of the cause, which is what you and so many other transit enthusiasts have been doing for so many rail projects across the country. Thank you for your efforts and keep up the great work.
When I used to work at the Sears distribution center back in 1989-1990, in order to get there after getting off the bus, I used to walk in that tunnel underneath the Blvd and see that station. They kept it clean and it had orange tiles like some of the stations on the Broad Street Line and it would always baffle me why it was there and why it wasn’t finished. Like all things that have come and gone, I wish I was heavy into photography because memories are all I have of it now. smh
Even as a kid, every time I see or hear "SEPTA" I don't envision Philly's subway trains, I imagine a large public bathroom or porta potties.
Extending any Philly subway route is just going to increase the number of places that reek of urine ;)
The problem is the Septa board and it's focus on suburban routes and not city routes. This board almost got a rail line from King of Prussia to Norristown a distance of approximately 4 miles at a cost of 2 billion dollars but the Feds wouldn't assist in funding. The Roosevelt Boulevard line is a no brainer. The population density and the distance from Hunting Park to Neshammity is 3 times the distance of the KOP line. Population density at least the same difference. The Boulevard is routinely one of the most treacherous routes in the US. All the while the Speta board twiddles it fingers.
I don't know them personally but I bet they're worthless and elitist and corrupt.
I agree that $2 billion for that short Norristown Hi-Speed Line extension would have been nuts. But you overlook the fact that despite being in the suburbs, it would have served mostly city residents traveling to jobs in the suburbs (esp. King of Prussia), transferring from the El at 69th St. It wasn't a case of favoring the suburbs over the city at all. In fact, most of the people living along the extension seemed to oppose it.
I just heard today they are not going to complete this. It is so needed by the public, but no politician wants to attach themselves to such an expense.
If always baffled me just how little subway lines there are in Philly. I always figured Philly can use more subway lines to connect more neighborhoods.
I've always hoped they wouldn't connect more neighborhoods this way...out in the suburbs, our cars are being stolen by Philly ppl who take public transpo out and drive one of my neighbors cars home...happened 3x this year. Those lines shouldn't come anywhere near the suburbs...
@@allhopeabandon7831 Maybe build a wall to keep those city folk where they belong, right?
@@allhopeabandon7831 The Paoli line serves high-end areas like Villanova and Wayne. The P&W has run through upmarket communities like Radnor for over *a century.* Three different train lines have gone to towns like Glenside since the 19th century.
Where are all of the thieves and brigands who supposedly take those trains to steal Muffy's silver and Bryce's golf clubs? Gimme the rest of a break from your imaginary crime waves.
But we have one of the two most extensive surface rail networks in the country .. not good enough? (I would agree that at least a couple more sub lines should’ve been constructed despite the large rail network)
Philadelphia used to be a trolley city with a route on every third numbered street with even number streets going north to south and the odd number streets went south to north. So a trolley would go down 2nd street starting at Cheltenham Ave and ending in South Philadelphia where it would turn and come back north bound on 3rd street . The next route would be on 5th and 6th street , and. 8th and 9 th streets. It had routes all thru out the city limits and several routes that went to willow grove that’s why the transit company built willow grove park so they would get more riders on that route . They still have the subway surface cars that go from underground in center city out to south west Philadelphia and continue to routes through out Delaware county. Thats why are subway system infrastructure is very limited . After the war there was a decision by the transit company to switch to gas powered buses that are easier to detour if there’s a road project or accident but they still kept some of the popular trolley routes in the city like in my neighborhood we still have the only trolley route that uses the post war pcc presidential series cars with the 15 trolley route but it’s still officially supposed to come from west Philadelphia and end at the Richmond street loop but since the 95 construction and the Richmond street project where they rerouted the street from Allegheny Ave down to where the casino is located . The last time I saw one of the older trolleys on any part of the 15 trolley route was in 2014 and the trolley was not going to go into Fishtown or Richmond they built a loop at Frankford and Delaware ave where it can loop around and go out to the other end of the line in west Philadelphia.
Hey, for what it's worth, Toronto is finally building a subway line that was first proposed more than 100 years ago (Downtown Relief Line/Ontario Line). So don't lose hope and keep pushing for it!
New York has just gotten/is still getting new century-planned transit (second ace subway, east side access). It can happen. And sometimes it does
As long as it doesn't come to the suburbs, I am 'okay' with it...but one thing SEPTA (run by Philly DemocRATs) has taught us, is that they can't run without subsidies from PA tax payers who wouldn't ever want to set foot inside those crime ridden city limits.
Plans to build Montreal's Blue Line extension to Anjou has been going on/off and on since 1988. Construction is supoosed to finally begin in fall of 2024 and to be completed by 2029 but I'm not holding my breath as already the cost overrun of this project has ballooned to over 6.4 billion and construction has not even started..that is the problem with mega projects in Quebec not to dealing with the enviomentalists the nimbys etc. For the original stations that were built in the 1960s they had it done in just a few years at a cost of $130 million. So lots of luck to the people of North East Philadephia.
@@allhopeabandon7831 get your facts straight, SEPTA is not run by Philly Democrats! The overwhelming majority of people on the board are from THE SUBURBS. That's the problem. The SUBURBS have the power of SEPTA. Which doesn't make any sense.
@@allhopeabandon7831Ah -- been reading the MAGA playbook, have we? I'm a regular visitor to Philly, and can say that, with the application of basic "street smarts," I've never felt unsafe.
Reminds me of the abandoned Kymlinge ghost station on the blue line metro here in Stockholm. It was supposed to be one of the farther suburbs as a result of post-war housing construction, but due to the oil crisis in the 70's they abandoned the plans utilize the station. Now they are proposing plans to build housing after more than 50 years in the same area and hopefully utilize the ghost station. It even sparked its own urban legend back in the 1980s, where teenagers would spread the myth that if you happened to board an unusual old ghost train - metro rolling stock "Silverpilen" which, was unpainted and maintained its Silver aluminium livery, you'd end up dead as the train wouldn't stop anywhere else except for Kymlinge ghost station, where all the dead passengers leave.
That Kymlinge ghost story sounds quite fascinating. One could make a movie about it.
Oooo-ooo ... the Kymlinge Ghost Train! Love those urban legends.
Stockholm T-Bahn
I really like the videos centered around transit in Philadelphia. Philadelphia and Chicago are probably the last affordable densely populated major cities with reliable transit.
unfortunately people are starting to realize this and drive up the cost of living in philly
@@the.abhiram.r A lot of ppl are moving to Philly now?
Well, Chicago and Philly are also warzones so that likely has to do with the affordability.
As for if people are moving to Philly now, I don't have numbers but based on my working in West Philly (for which I drove around a lot) from 2010-2015 and seeing it these days, it is beyond overcrowded. 676 has traffic on it like 24 hours a day. Seems to be a serious influx of out of towners in Center City and South Philly. Probably West Philly, too, but I don't go there much anymore. Southwest is more dangerous than I ever remember it being. It's wild. Philly has so many issues and I genuinely don't see a fix for them between the violence and lack of money. Just seems like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
@@chrisg7731 I don't know about Philly but I'm pretty sure the crime in both cities is overblown by media. If I got a job offer in one of those cities I'd move there and bring my immediate family and some friends. It's affordable, you don't need a car and Philly itself is served by Intercity rail and buses.
@@chrisg7731 I live in South Philly, and honestly since being born here in 1983, I've definitely seen an uptick in out of towners who make themselves almost obvious. But for the most part, the smaller streets and the rest of my neighborhood has remained pretty much the same. I would argue that some parts of the city are still redeemable, but yeah, other areas are absolute warzones.
My commute to downtown takes an hour+ from NE Philly. If the line was built, it would be cut in half and can actually compete with I-95 highway which takes about 30 minutes to get to downtown. That's insane and would cut down on traffic(I-95 have bad rush hour traffic) and emissions. Also Roosevelt is indeed a nightmare primarily for pedestrians. Not too bad for cars at least from my experience but can be quite hectic nonetheless. Also anything to get away from the Market-Frankford line. Due to fentanyl taking over the city, the line has turned to a homeless shelter and injection site. They had to shut down Somerset for awhile too, It stinks and unclean, I worry about my health riding it with all the smoke, needles, and filth. This has gotten so bad during the pandemic and even if the pandemic is fully over, I'd probably still wear a N95 mask on the "L" due to the air pollution on the level of chemical warfare.
It’s so crazy that this isn’t a nobrainer, 400k people live in northeast Philadelphia and all they have are like 3 busses that come every 15 minutes or better.
Hell, it's second only to Second Avenue in terms of ridership potential, and _that_ one's more like a long-overdue restoration of rail service than a completely original project.
You're in good company. My city has 300k people and 0 buses that come every 15 minutes or better.
Some lines in Northeast Philadelphia only run on the hour and some bus lines do not run on the weekends. Northeast Philadelphia is lacking reliable public transit, especially lines connecting to areas besides Center City.
@@JHZech Its not that the city has 300,000 people, its that that little *part* of the city has 300,000 people and its horribly congested. Morning and afternoon rush hours are a NIGHTMARE on the Roosevelt Boulevard
Keep going to the Blvd subway meetings, a septa rep was at the last one and we're picking up traction!
You kind of glossed over the significance of the transit project you mentioned. It did not just "connect two downtown stations." Historically, Philadelphia had two commuter rail systems which competed: The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Railroad. Both systems terminated in Center City, along Market Street, the major East-West thoroughfare. In the aftermath of the Penn Central bankruptcy, when Conrail was created, the commuter systems of several eastern cities were turned over to the municipalities to run. So SEPTA inherited both the PRR & Reading systems. There was some redundancy, particularly in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood, which was generally upper income and served by both lines, east & west of Germantown Avenue. The alternative to the Roosevelt Blvd extension was to cut an underground tunnel that would connect the terminal stations of both railroads. This would allow trains to run through center city instead of terminating and allow point-to-point connections that had never existed before. It was touted as saving money by streamlining overall operations. I thought it was a great idea, though I don't know whether it really saved money in the long run. The project had some issues. The PRR & Reading had different signaling systems, for one thing. Pretty sure it went over budget. Was supposed to be completed in time for the Bicentennial in 1976, but was not completed until around 1981. This is not to downplay the importance of an extension to Roosevelt Blvd. But I think Frank Rizzo knew where the bread was buttered. The Northeast is mostly blue-collar working class, whereas the transit tunnel would theoretically benefit all Philadelphians including those in wealthy Chestnut Hill and the Mainline. There was talk of eliminating redundancy in the Chestnut Hill lines, but that never materialized and that neighborhood is still served by two lines with stations sometimes only a dozen blocks apart.
The other thing is that if someone in the Northeast had to work in Center City, they could take Regional Rail, the El from Bridge Street, or the Subway from Fern Rock.
With the boulevard as dangerous as it is...imagine thousands of commuters trying to cross from the center outward.. pedestrian tunnels would have to be built for every stop. Not as inexpensive as advertised
@@jwhiskey242 True. I lived near Welsh & the Blvd close to Holme Circle. I used to commute on 95 to a job in Moorestown. I had to go without a car for awhile and ended up commuting via a bus from Holme Circle down the Blvd to the el, then Bridge & Pratt to 13th St where I'd catch a bus to Moorestown. It took a couple of hours but was cheap and definitely doable.
This makes a lot of sense. I’m from Philly. I grew up in Germantown and went to high school in the Northeast. We all joked that kids who grew up in the Norheast never leave. While everyone else goes downtown to hang out the Northeast kids literally just stay in their neighborhoods. I never really realized that the northeast does not have a subway system. Living in g town I could catch the subway, bus, or regional rail. I had options but they didn’t.
Depends on how far northeast I suppose. I lived in the northeast and I would take a short bus ride to the Frankford Terminal to catch the El into the Gallery.
@@CGSteve8718 we (I’m one of the far northeast kids as well) would too but the problem is the busses are 1-2 times an hour so if you miss it you’re guaranteed to be late for any plans and that’s assuming the bus comes on time, let alone at all
I also grew up in the far NE. I didn't go into Center City much, but I did go to Phillies games at the Vet, which for me meant walking to Frankford Ave to catch the 66 to Bridge and Pratt, then transferring to the MFL line to City Hall, and then transferring again the BSL line south to Pattison Ave and the stadium. So two transfers, three seats, and a round-trip cost of 90 cents :-) A single-seat ride from Comly or Red Lion and the Blvd would have been wonderful.
💯👍🏿
I used to go through Roosevelt Blvd every Saturday until my late teens. But yeah, I do recall as a child asking myself, "how does this road works?" and "why is there another road right beside this bigger one?".
For a laugh, turn on Google Maps for directions even if you know where you are going. The inside/outside lanes confuse even GPS apps.
The same thing happened in Boston where people moved into Jamaica Plain in anticipation of the reactivation of the tram line "E" branch ,then a sitting Director of Massbike formed a group called Better transit without trolleys.
Don't forget the disgusting "Silver Line" bus "rapid transit"!
@@edwardmiessner6502 A nomenclature as ironic as German Democratic Republic; BRT to me means Banana Republic Transit Oh by the way, that is not a bus, it is a "bus rapid transit vehicle"
Funny...when I first started watching ti=his I was thinking about the subways in FO3 & 4...then you go and bring up Jamaica Plain, and I just might have to reinstall...
Can't understand why some people hate trolleys so. They are so much better than noisy stinky polluting diesel buses.
I've had to take the 14 bus far too often lately and it's terrifying. The 14 is usually one of the accordion buses and the drivers are a special kind of batshit Septa drivers.
As a resident of the area, I'd like to add this comment. The Sears Station that you describe is still there. At 7:20 on your video, you are following a van up the Roosevelt Boulevard and you see an air-vent on the left side of the screen. It's about 2 feet tall, square, and gray in color. At that point, on either side of the roadway are steps going down into the subway station. It should be cleaned and opened as a safe way for people to cross the 12 land boulevard, but it isn't. It is a home for the homeless.
thats not the station, that's a pedestrian tunnel. The Roosevelt Blvd/Adams station was build in the basement of the parking garage.
@@gemayelkeyes2167 That’s correct. It’s a pedestrian tunnel that I used countless times in the 1950s and 60s.
Iirc you could access the subway station from the basement of the Sears store off the hardware and sporting goods section by going through a double door that said something like “Employees Only” or “Do Not Enter”.
Remember it well, if you took the J K or R bus you would walk under that tunnel.
Please consider making a video talking about the ttc and what it could have been. I live in toronto and I've heard many stories from my parents about what our system could have been. Its frustrating to know that all we have is a big U with a line down the middle. I'd love to hear your takes on what could be added to the lines and what could have been changed from the start. keep up the awesome content.
In any given year it's not uncommon for the Boulevard to have 2-3 of the top ten or even top five most dangerous intersections in the country. I always wondered why the median was so wide. Station's and park-n-rides at Pennypack Circle, Adams, Frankford Circle, Roosevelt Mall and Neshaminy, along with additional stops would make perfect sense. This is why they will never be done.😂
Im an electrician for Septa. Not sure if you know this (you probably do😅), there's a subway ramp at Erie station that makes a turn to head into the northeast. At the top of the ramp is a decommissioned electrical substation; we call Old Butler. I really wish those projects were completed years ago.
Interesting
Is that what that old tunnel was near sears on blvd. A subway extension?
@@backwoods4l500 ...yes
@@musseia wow thought it was just away to cross the blvd I was a a kid when we could walk under ground to get to other side of blvd.
@@backwoods4l500 me too.....that was when the Sears Bulding was up.
That’s funny, I literally just saw a video about ghost Philly subways yesterday lmao. Crazy timing
I loved the use of "Right behind you"
The Roosevelt Blvd is one of the most dangerous roads in the area. It developed into what is basically a 12 lane highway but with cross streets, traffic lights, and pedestrians. It is prone to accidents, both fender benders and fatalities.
I hate driving on "The Blvd" I live near parts of it and still avoid it whenever possibly.
As a Philadelphian that lives in South Philly and regularly uses the subway I can say that I think that if the elran all the way up the boulevard it would transform the city
I wish my Dad would come back after 61 years
There's a ghost tunnel below Queen Street West in Toronto, that was supposed to be an underground streetcar-subway hybrid, but was abandoned. Now, that exact tunnel is going to be used for the Ontario Line that's being built. If the chaotic mess that is Toronto Transit planning could do it, so can Philly!
I don't think you have any idea how corrupt and inept the city of Filth-a-delphia is...I live in the suburbs, and I wish we could gift Philly to NJ where it belongs...
You forgot the quotation marks around "planning". Just trying to help.
It would be ironic if Gary Barbera ends up funding this line so that people visit his dealership and have Barbera Bear ads posted on the entire line.
This is a no brainer. I hope septa sees this and takes consideration. Thank you for your work!
The problem with a no-brainer that too many politicians in Philly have no brains.
@@Poisson4147good one lol. Philadelphians aren’t always the smartest in general lol. But seriously, they should build the boulevard subway. I’d ride because the boulevard is too scary to drive on
@@Poisson4147 They should have extended The Broad Street Subway to The Navy Yard. With all the business that is going on at that place they SEPTA don't even bring that subject up! And another thing why do these stupid tourists call William Penn Ben Franklin on top of city hall tower 🙄.
@@dennisholiday1868 😅😁 Not just the tourists - the Inky found a major travel brochure with the same stupid error.
And speaking of stupid errors, it's a TOTAL mystery why there hasn't been a serious investigation of SEPTA's incompetence. They've missed all sorts of opportunities to make small improvements with big benefits. E.g. extending the 101 trolley just a short distance to an intermodal station w/ the Media commuter train and a similar extension of the 10 to Overbrook station on the Paoli line.
Plus they've wasted *zillions* on failed dreams like the Schuylkill Valley Metro that a group of *amateur* rail buffs were able to show couldn't work as planned, the SVM that went _near_ all sorts of towns but not TO any of them, capped by the insane debacle that let the badly-needed KoP Rail project crash and burn after nearly tripling in price.
there was also a proposed subway extension back then going to the Roxborough section called the Roxborough Spur. There was also a proposed extension back then for The Market Frankford line to extend it going further north up Frankford Avenue to Rhawn Street. But none of it never came to be. There is also a ghost station under the road entrance to the Ben Franklin Bridge that was supposed to be a connection station for the Broad-Ridge Spur and PATCO HSL trains.
I've read a lot about these proposed lines. They all collided with the standard Philly obstacles: lack of will, lack of imagination, lack of money.
I served on the Citizen's Advisory Committee of the 1995-2003 Roosevelt Blvd. study. One thing we found out was that the subway station built under the old Sears store in NE Philly was not aligned for a subway under Roosevelt Boulevard, but was aligned for a proposed expressway that would have followed along a power line that followed a street called Pennway Street. The expressway was cancelled in the 1970s, with the subway along the median of the cancelled expressway failing when Mayor Frank Rizzo decided to choose the Center City Commuter Tunnel over the NE Subway for funding. This new proposal is supposed to go into Bensalem Township in Bucks County...business interests in the area near Neshaminy Mall are hoping that new businesses will develop the area. I've personally been in touch with Jay Arzu, the person who's been pushing this latest proposal. I hope his efforts, along with others who have gotten behind this, will finally see a subway under the Boulevard. This will also yield a 1-stop extension of the Market-Frankford Line, to run under Bustleton Avenue to Roosevelt Boulevard. The 2003 relocation of the former Bridge-Pratt el station into the Frankford Transportation Center had a provision on the north end to allow for this route.
How about doing a video on New Jerseys numerous rail trails?
Be sure to cite how the rail trail advocates are dupes of the highway lobby that form alliances with the anti transit NIMBYs
Build viaducts problem solved
They gotta do this in Cincinnati
Lol no, if that happened, they would be creating a whole new metro system.
You guys have an abandoned subway tunnel that was never used
@@edwardmiessner6502 Exactly
I grew up in NE Philly and remember watching the construction of the Sears Station. What a pity the Blvd extension was never able to get past the planning stage.
Hey! This was really cool to hear about I never knew that they had planned a subway for the Boulevard. Regarding how long it took to find an apartment, the city needs to have a frank conversation about the profiteering via short-term rentals and the startling rise in residential rents and even home prices. When people ask "why isn't AirBnB driving hotel costs down?" they don't think about the fact that it has been systematically driving rents up and until the cost to rent a hotel room is the same as long-term rent, there's no pressure on hotels to push their costs downward.
The City of Philadelphia wages war against rental housing providers. All sorts of regulations that require compliance, and that costs money that has to come from somewhere - and that somewhere is going to be rent increases.
There is a supply shortage of rental housing in the city, partly due to the regulatory burdens that have driven many rental property owners to sell, and then you end up with rentals being removed from the rental market by owner occupant buyers.
The City of Philadelphia has also introduced regulations for the short term rental market; they now have a limit on number of days and must pay the hotel tax too, among other things.
Now, part of what’s missing is the city enforcing these regulations, other than on those who attempt to comply. The number of unlicensed rentals can only be estimated, but one property manager put out a page in their website outlining how the city could identify the properties that potentially could be rentals, then cross reference those to the licensed rentals, leaving a list of those properties that potentially are rentals but not licensed - and go after those. For example, that could turn up properties being used as short term rentals but not complying with the regulations.
I already wrote too much …
@@stevebabiak6997 Yeah I gotta call bullsh!t on that one. I rented a place in Philly when I was going to college at Temple and my landlord let that place go so bad I was gambling with my life every time I went up the stairs. Leaky roof, sloping mushy floors, torn up carpet, and the City couldn't care less. We didn't even have a fire escape (we were on the 3rd floor)
No 'compliance' from where I stood
@@edwardgiovannelli5191 - there are many landlords who do try to comply, and others who don’t. But you are only talking about the physical condition of the property - the regulations that have nothing to do with the physical condition are ridiculous. And even some of the ones regarding physical condition are ridiculous - requiring lead paint levels to be tested when no child will be living in a unit, for example.
@@stevebabiak6997 How can you guarantee that no child, or mentally impaired adult, for that matter, will ever live in a unit? No one will ever sand down the paint and release tons of lead particulate into the air?
Sorry, if testing for lead paint is the hill you choose to die on, I'm with the City on this one.
@@edwardgiovannelli5191 - and that is one of the reasons that landlords sell, and those that continue raise rents.
The main mechanism for lead poisoning is through ingestion of lead paint chips (I have been through a weekend long training on this). The surfaces with lead paint get painted over to encapsulate any lead paint.
As far as the children living there, the law used to require testing then - in that case I agree testing is required. When only adults occupy a unit, the risk to them is tiny.
And almost all people over age 50 grew up in housing that had a high likelihood to have lead paint. And also grew up with leaded gasoline back when emission regulations on cars were nonexistent. If that type of lead exposure was so toxic, you would see it affecting far more people in that age group. Eliminating lead from gasoline was certainly beneficial in reducing lead exposure. Prohibiting use of lead paint in housing is also beneficial.
One last point is if the lead situation is that toxic to all, why are rental properties the only ones that are affected by those regulations? The logic to that is …
The station was called Adams, and was located under a former parking garage under the NE corner of Adams & Whitaker Aves.
It was located on the Sears property, not under the building. The Blvd underpass was not part of the subway at all and was just to get from one side to the other.
It was also demolished when the Sears building was imploded in 1994.
Back in the late 70's the also talked about a monorail system in the center of the blvd. Cost would be less than a subway. Not common as a transport mode back then, so it never gained traction.
That would be ridiculous. How would a monorail that would require a transfer to the subway be better than just building an elevated extension of the subway? A monorail is cheaper only because it's built above ground.
Midwest had a decent chunk of these sadly. I think the Cincinnati Subway is the largest completely unused ghost subway in the country .
Dude your whole point about “anyone who lives up in NE hates driving, hates walking, the boulevard” (if you survive walking or biking the boulevard) is so true, along with the “people in other cities would love to have that kind of housing density near metro service”. There’s a lot of good lines of septa and there’s a lot of problems; we can go back to the tire, car, oil corporations that messed up trolleys and took them away in favor of their money making cars and roads, but, we’re in 2023. It’s time for some changes.
I will be watching more of your videos and ,thank you for this one very much!
Wow even go into frank rizzo and everything, lol! I’m turning 30 this year but I know my Philly history and I know there have been some corrupt ass people in the way of progress. Including supposedly some of our city …uh…the people that are elected but..Not representatives but ____??? Edit: city council. Duh.
Mayor Street was the worst of the lot...he was the equivalent of Obama to our city. There, I said it for ya...
This is such a great idea! I wonder if an extension of the El further up into the northeast would also be feasible.
because of the I-95 collapse, you'd think they'd give this idea the "Greenlight"
Thanks you for making these videos!
Realistically, it will take a full decade to push the boulevard subway to the point of actually building something real. In that time, there will be multiple changes in leadership at the agency, city, state, and national levels. Relevant funding mechanisms will change. Major projects (KoP rail, trolley modernization, etc) will be delivered with greater or lesser success. We have to be the constant, and we need activist leaders who will show up and hold the line through it all.
Various studies will sandbag the full metro option. They will propose unnecessarily expensive construction methods when cut-and-cover or below-grade running is perfectly suited for the boulevard. They will space the stations extra far apart to claim it won’t serve the local communities well. They will propose a transfer station at the BSL rather making it a branch line. They will claim we could get as good of service at half the cost with LRT. They will claim we could most of the benefits at a tenth of the cost with BRT.
We know this because it happens every time. The process is designed to make metro fail. Politicians want the credit for delivering something quick and on the cheap. They have zero incentive to support a massively expensive project that won’t even begin by the time they’re out of office. We have to hold their feet to fire and demand they build what everyone knows should be built.
Great video man, also the bsl was supposed to be a combination of elevated and underground subway route to the city limits at poquessing creek. They also wanted to make a junction at Olney terminal for a branch line to Germantown and terminating somewhere near Cheltenham av.
The subway station is actually under the Blvd infront of where Sears was. When I was a kid my Mom often drove and parked across the Blvd on the other side--not alot of spaces but less congestion for parking. We'd walk under the Blvd to get to the other side. At least it was what we would think of as a concourse/mezzanine like at Walnut-Locust. I don't know if track and platform areas are under the concourse area. There is space under the Henry Av bridge for a subway to run up toward Roxborough, Wyoming Av was planned way back so wide to accomodate a subway or elevated line. An older history buff once explained to me (when I complained about the lack of subway lines) the impact of a Widener dying on the Titanic, WW1, then Depression halting construction. Under FDR, the city's republican government didn't want to take much relief money which could have given us jobs and subway lines. And here we are today.
I've been inside the Henry Ave bridge, it's an impressive sight.
I always take the El to Frankford and Boulevard Direct to Neshaminy Mall specifically so I can avoid driving on the boulevard myself, even if it's only a few miles after getting off the highway. And I'm always down for more subway stuff!
I love ghost subway lines.
I would love to see the creepy Arch Street line. I bet it is absolutely hauntingly beautiful ❤️
Can you do a video about the Cincinnati subway?
Its a sad story
@@GenericUrbanism yup. It can't even be used anymore because the tunnel got a second life as electric and water tunnels I believe
@@robk7266 It's my understanding that the water main and electric stuff down there are only there on the condition that the tunnel isn't used for transit. If the tunnels are ever to be used, that stuff will be pulled out, at the owner's expense. So that water main shouldn't be a blocker, if I'm understanding everything correctly at least.
I saw a video about the history of the tunnel. Most shameful that they wouldn't go back to the voters for more money to complete it. They even had a ready made excuse: it's Woidrow Wilson's fault it cost so much because he joined the US into World War 1.
I really hope this happens in one way or another, i dont want buses, lightrail would be ok in its own row, but a subway/elevated subway would be the best thing they could do for the area.
Ha! I'm in this video and didn't even notice until the second time watching it. I'm sitting in a chair 7:00 - 7:04 at one of the SEPTA meetings about the project held at the Philadelphia Protestant Home (PPH). Grey hoodie, red Adidas. Enjoy the back of my head, everyone!
l have lived in Philly my whole life. I've always wanted this line built, especially now that I live in NE Philly. I think it would have a very positive effect for the whole city.
Excellent research, documentation, and presentation! 👍
I lived in Willow Grove for years and hated the Roosevelt Boulevard. It's that bad
Did you try the train from Willow Grove?
Love your videos keep up the good work
Why could the city not have built both the connector and the NE extension? Other cities could afford more than one project. Now the big questions are why the City is not submitting both a project application for the NE extension and for a central LRT line both for 80 percent matching funds. Several of us have ideas. The Council and Mayor sure seem to snap to attention when billionaires want a new arena.
i swear your videos on philly are, like, the only reason i want to visit that city. for as much as everyone seems to rag on SEPTA you still point out so many cool little neighborhoods that would be so cool to just, wander around as a tourist, y'know?
love your stuff man
Make sure you visit Kensington when you come to Philly ;)
@@stevebabiak6997 Steve's kidding. don't visit Kensington.
No…visit Kensington section of Philly. There is a tourist kiosk down there somewhere and can tell you ALL about the area. There is even a tour bus. 🚞
@@heygetoffmylawn1572 - they gotta take the EL and get off at K&A …
I am surprised that you didn’t have a theory for the 1948 blockage of funding. That is exactly the time that one of the major oil, companies, and one of the major tire companies, we’re conspiring to buy up, and get rid of public transit systems, so that people would be forced to purchase more gasoline for their cars and tires as well.
You're referring to National City Lines, a "false front" for GM, Firestone, and other auto-related companies. NCL presented itself a a white knight that would streamline transit operations around the country. Instead as you note they "fixed" things by ripping them up.
When NCL got involved with the PTC, inside of three years they converted about two dozen trolley lines to buses and shut down 3 or 4 more. In some cities like DC they completely destroyed streetcar service. IIRC when they were finally outed, they paid a fine of something like $5K. Oooh, that hurt!
It's true: I would kill for tight, transit-ready development like that in my city
Wow, I never knew about this, great vid
Great video! And also I love music from Dirt Rally in the background :D
SEPTA just last week said "Absolutely NO." There's no funding.
Neither the region nor the state wants to fund transit. The situation's not much different in Pittsburgh either.
Depending on the bucket involved, SEPTA gets anywhere from 1/3 to 1/7 as much funding per capita compared to systems in other US cities.
@@Poisson4147 the state doesn’t mind, Harrisburg and the state funds more money to SEPTA than philly…. The city it’s in. The problem is septa and the city don’t care, we can get one of those new federal transit project funding but that only covers the first 50%
As someone who is living in LA, we have many transit expansion projects here; some of them are our rail system. One of the biggest roadblocks (track blocks?) I have witnessed is not so much the actual construction of the line itself, but as Alan mentioned, it's either getting the right-of-way (ROW) (aka fighting with NIMBYs, eminent domaining land, purchasing land, etc), or even when you have the ROW, you need to make sure it's free of utilities, otherwise that will slow down construction even more. The aforementioned issue I mentioned earlier is what exactly happened to the Regional Connector project, one of the larger projects out here that connect 3 train lines together and travels down through one of the densest areas of downtown. The project was constantly delayed because of the relocation of 100+ year old utilities in the downtown area. The thing is almost done, and should be opened sometime this year, but knowing this, and then learning about these ghost lines that have literally everything going for them, except for, like, willpower, is incredibly frustrating; people would kill to be in this situation. The people of Philadelphia have everything served to them on a silver platter. Just take it!
This goes for any other abandoned or ghost transit lines and stations, btw.
If the boulevard is so busy though why don't we use that medium to add some extra lanes to it? Surely adding more lanes will fix traffic? Right? Who needs transit that can carry multiple times that many people with way less carbon emissions?
But for real this is so amazing to see old projects being revitalized
Adding lanes there would make pedestrian crossing nearly impossible without also construction of pedestrian bridges or pedestrian underpasses.
@@stevebabiak6997 Everyone knows pedestrian overpasses are the best and most pedestrian friendly designs. Especially for disabled people like me /s
@@freyak5401 - I guess they could be ramped up, but notice my previous posts weren’t really advocating for them. Because I don’t think adding more lanes there is a good idea.
And BTW - pedestrian crossing there is already enough of a challenge for able bodied - I can’t begin to imagine how someone with a disability would manage with just the existing lanes.
0:53 - About 50 years ago, there was a plan to expand the PATCO system with three lines in South Jersey, and with a river-tunnel and using a Arch & Locust loop subway.
That plan got nowhere other than a plan on paper.
Correct - specifically, the DVRPC had even proposed extending PATCO west from 16th St. to then-nascent University City, then onward to the now-destroyed PRR Cardington branch where it would connect to the P&W in Upper Darby. PATCO & the P&W are almost fully compatible so they wouldn't need massive modifications.
And after 50 years, not a single millimeter of track has ever been built.
As someone who did Drivers Ed on The Blvd, it will always hold a soft spot with me. That said....When Septa introduced the Blvd Direct bus it felt to me like a surrender that the BSL will never be finished (or maybe just an abbreviated version since the Direct doesn't go all the way to 9th Street).
There's a street similar to Roosevelt Boulevard in Queens known as Hillside Blvd, the current terminus of the F line. If you look at a map, you can see it's a wide road and the intersection at Springfield Blvd was even built out wider than usual to accommodate a future terminus. There are currently no plans to extend this line but I think it's the most easy to do extension currently.
Advocacy and education at its finest- yer awesome Alan!
Thanks, I never knew this & I live here on fst and Roosevelt Blvd all my life.
There is also an abandoned trolley route # 43 that ran in a tunnel near the art museum, one of the stupidest things SEPTA has done over the years is scrap most of the trolley system, while everyone else in the industrialized world has been expanding and building Trolley/light rail systems. A light rail line might be a more affordable option for Roosevelt Blvd, if it was built similar to the Los Angeles Blue Line, it also could be built in away to be upgraded to Heavy rail when ridership increases and more funds become available.
SEPTA's predecessor, the PTC, was hugely mismanaged. They also brought in NCL which accelerated abandonment of their trolley lines. Within a year after NCL took over something like two dozen streetcar lines were converted to buses and three more were completely shut down. For whatever reason that mindset persists at SEPTA - see the 23, 56, etc. However it does look like CEO Richards is a lot more pro-rail than the chiefs who've preceded her.
I wholeheartedly agree before I transferred over to the BSL I drove trolleys. I never understood why Septa got rid of its trolley lines especially lines like 60,50,6,and 56. So sad that the rest of the world is embracing light rail and these antiquated clowns continue to decrease its trolleys.
@@athenousjohnson2511 "SEPTA" =
Systematically
Eliminating
Public
Transit
Altogether
There's a ghost tunnel in Boston called the Pleasant Street Incline that branches off the MBTA Green Line at Boylston Street and runs under Tremont Street almost to the Mass. Pike. It was going to be used for replacement service for the Washington Street El that was torn down, but bean counters at the FTA decided that "bus rapid transit" would be better. Result was a sick joke for the residents of Boston's South End and Roxbury neighborhoods.
Great video, thanks Alan. Hopefully Philly can make that train line happen, and I would think that now would be the best time to actually do it. Cheers.
this video was great and concise! I'm not familiar with your channel but have you ever heard of the stories to put a subway brewerytown/strawberrymansion area? I lived out there for a decade and most people wont go there without transit, and now ever since they eliminated the trolley on girard its so much worse, those transit promises are stories every business owner in brewerytown talk about
That moment you watch an interesting video, then later realize a picture of the street you grew up on was used as B-roll.
Excellent vid!
Man, I love to hear what you think about the Honolulu Rail project in Hawaii. Basically, the project is like 10+ years overdue in terms of scheduling and has cost us like $13 billion USD. Think it would be interesting to hear your thoughts about that and island urban planning in general.
I use to be a security guard at the Philadelphia museum of art and I have been in that old "station" that was build under the museum. They use it to store unused paintings etc. It's been 25 years since I been in there but they had arrows pointing to the route 43 streetcar. If you wander around the property especially next to the building in the front, there are subway escape stairs.
Not any more. It is directly connected to the West Entrance now. It's pubic space and they have cafes and gift shops down there in the tunnel.
@@halsawyer9930 really? A lot has changed since 1998 apparently? I remember when I was there , there was talk that they were going to purchase another building as an annex so I’m assuming this is where they have the paintings in storage that aren’t on display.
@@ghostengineer - the museum did annex the insurance building that is on the corner north of the museum. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perelman_Building
@@ghostengineer Yeah, they got that annex long ago, but the tunnel art mostly went to a remote, climate-controlled storage facility. What used to be the old A, B and C level basements of the museum are completely different now. But , you know, there are deeper, scarier tunnels under "The Tunnel". That stuff is still down there, but I've never seen it.
A duplex is a house turned into 2 apartments. Two rowhomes are called a twin.
Preach Alan! This was great! 😂
Great video! I moved to Philly in 1975, watched the construction of the Commuter Connection & lived in Center City until 1983. At that point I decided to move to the Northeast & it came down to an apartment near Sears (requiring commuting on the Blvd) or near Welsh & the Blvd (requiring commuting on 95). I ultimately chose the location near Welsh and the Blvd because I couldn't imagine commuting on the Blvd every day. I agree it's a no-brainer. I never could figure out why they didn't just built the subway.
Funny how it's so apparent that there are no tracks . Love these type of videos !!!
As someone who knows the Boston subway system, it's always kind of shocking to see how other cities don't have or just won't complete their network.
Boston has areas it needs to expand into, and currently has teething problems with new trains and issues with track maintenance, but it still seems to have less bad decisions in the past than many cities
There’s also a couple of partially underground subway lines I’ve heard of which are possibly in Europe that were actually completed but never opened to the public so they are sitting mostly abandoned with minimal upkeep maintenance still being conducted on them so they could hopefully eventually be opened sometime soon! :)
And don’t forget to ask each candidate for mayor and city council in the election this year!
I love getting an ad for absolutely evil VRBO on this video
Whatever happened to the PATCO on extension to 30th Street Station if you get off the Market Frankford line at 30th Street Station and you look down you can see through the metal grating where there are stairs would take you to a sub-level. The same can be said for City Hall and Dilworth Park station. Also at Broad and Snyder station you can see a side cut that tunnel was for trains to take you into Southeast Philadelphia and or to connect with the PATCO line.
Extending PATCO was proposed as far back as the early 1970s, just after the line opened. The DVRPC had a plan to extend it in sections, first to the 30th St. area, then along the old Cardington branch to Upper Darby. Reportedly PATCO was designed to allow interoperability with the P&W / NHSL, which would have fulfilled the P&W's plan to provide cross-Philly service. But like everything else around here plans died on the rocks of no imagination, no will, no money.
@Poisson Volant First, I would like to say thank you for replying. Next, I would like to say I'm glad to see that there are so many people who know exactly what I'm talking about.
@@ChesterWolf My pleasure. I confess to veering more than occasionally into obsessive geekiness about things like transit, old jazz, etc. 😁
Is it just me or would this extension also provide a great transit connection to the NE Philly Airport?
What would be the point of that? NE Philly airport doesn't have any commercial flights, and private users are not going to have any use for public transportation to get to the airport.
The subway station at the old Sears complex was filled in with sand when the Home Depot was built.
Yay another video!
Toronto has or had two similar ghost line projects. The most famous being the Queen Street Subway which was first proposed in 1909. Like your example in the video it to was nearly built multiple times, first in 1910 when residents approved of it (and the Yonge Street Subway) in a referendum, but the newly elected mayor opposed the projects high cost (like $5 Million I believe (this is 1910 money we're talking about). It was nearly built again in the 40's/50's when we built the Yonge Subway (now Line 1), however it was put on the shelf since the Province and Feds couldn't work out a post-war employment program to build it. A platform for it was roughed in under Queen Station though. It came around again in the 80's as part of the "Network 2011" plan with the line now refereed to as the "Downtown Relief Line" as Line 1 was overcrowded. It may have been built if Premier Bill Davis didn't retire and the Conservatives loose the 1986 election to the Liberals who didn't like Network 2011's $2 Billion price tag. It came up again in the 2010's and a lot of work was done on the project before it was replaced by the "Ontario Line" project in 2018. Thankfully preliminary construction has begin on the Ontario Line so Toronto is finally getting its subway on Queen Street, it just took us 110 years to do it.
The other ghost line would be the Eglinton West Subway which was also proposed as part of the Network 2011 plan in the 80's. However it was an objectively terrible idea as originally planned and while preliminary construction work did begin on the line in the 90's it was ended by the Conservatives under Premier Mike Harris who filled in the hole that was dug. It too has risen from the dead as the Eglinton Crosstown Line (Line 5) which has been under construction for 10 years and will open.... eventually (it was supposed to be this year). Now people can debate the eastern end of the line being at street-level but the Crosstown is objectively better than the Eglinton West Subway since it fixes the flaws that original project has. its LRT tech is far more suitable for the routes projected ridership, not only does it connect to Line 1 at Yonge Street but goes well beyond into the cities east end of Scarborough, and when fully built out from Kennedy to Renforth (and eventually the Airport) it will be a true crosstown line that extends from the cities east to west ends far beyond what the original Eglinton West subway was ever planned to do.
I-95 has a median down the Center too. Perfect for high speed train
0:39 The Spy has already breached our defenses
Cincinnati wanted a loop system, too, starting in the early 1900s. It was like subway overland beltway into the burbs and around back to the city.
For the intro... I never EXPECTED to hear TF2 music!!! Awesome video today, I think there are also ghost tunnels under Sydney's Central Station too?
I saw recently on WNEP that the Reading & Northern Railroad is planning on Train Excursions from Pittston (Wilkes-Barre) to Jim Thorpe. Hopefully they’ll release more info on later phases of the project, and bring back much needed rail service to Northeast PA
Brother please let me know when this is about to happen. Would be interested in the excursion.