Friday, November 7, 2008

Space Constraint

Urban Cincy Brings us this Gem:

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a great sign!

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of signs I saw a few years ago on the Toronto subway, showing how many lanes would have to be added to the Gardiner Expressway if the subway didn't exist.

Anonymous said...

reminds me of a similar scene in this old pro-transit video on archive.org...
Going Places (1948)
http://www.archive.org/details/GoingPlaces

Anonymous said...

one might visit
http://www.cincinnati-transit.net/subway.html
and then weep--Cincy built part of a subway and gave up.

Anonymous said...

I already noted in one of my earlier comments about a subway in Cincinnati, using a link to Wikipedia. I knew they could have used it if they had light rail already, and if they do attempt it again, it wouldn't be so bad.

This piece of advertising looks quite interesting, BTW. Many of the older streetcars and trams, and some of the newer models, like the Citadis, are quite interesting to look at in width, particularly many of those in Europe still in use today!

And I knew that there used to be a subway used by streetcars in Rochester, New York (the Rochester Subway). That would be good if light rail could use it (or part of it anyway) again.

Anonymous said...

matt,

Rochester is my hometown. I grew up in the 80s when the city was really going downhill. When I was little, I remember my mom taking me to rummage sales and I would get really old maps and street guides and stuff, and wonder at how busy the city must have been back in the 20s or so, and how sad it had become. Pretty much the same story everywhere in the "rust belt", I guess.

Randy Simes said...

Cincinnati did indeed begin a subway system in the early 20th Century. The project was initially halted because of material demands for WWI. The effort to finish the subway restarted after the conclusion of the war, but by that time inflation costs and other issues made it politically unfeasible.

Recent light rail efforts have studied the use of the tunnels for light rail connection into downtown, and have found out that it would be feasible. Currently Cincinnati is moving forward with a streetcar system (www.cincystreetcar.com) that is constantly chugging along. I would also look for some light rail news to be rearing its head again in the Queen City in the not so distant future.

Thanks for the link, these old images of the way our cities used to be and how things have changed are just fascinating.