[LINK] "Pipe Dreams, or the Rochester Ghost Subway"

[rfmcdonald]

Arrogant adopted Torontonian that I am, I know too little about Toronto's counterpart cities on the American shores of Lake Ontario. Take Rochester, for instance. Although customs and shipping regulations played a part in ending Bay Ferries Great Lakes' experiment in running a high-speed ferry connecting Toronto with Rochester, the problem with the ferry from the Toronto end may have been the general disinterest in seeing Rochester. What's there?

For one, as Strange Maps shows, Rochester once had a subway.

Strangely enough, Rochester owed its subway to the banishment from town of an earlier mode of transport. In 1900, the city fathers found the Erie Canal’s route straight through the city centre to be an unnecessary eyesore, and decided to divert it away from the urban agglomeration. The disused canal bed thus became the prime location for Rochester’s subway route. The last ship sailed through town in 1919, the first train travelled on the Rochester Industrial & Rapid Transit Route (RI&RTR) in 1927 (the overhead serving as Broad Street). For three decades, Rochester would be served by a subway, apparently the smallest city in the world ever to possess one.

Subway is a bit of a misleading term for the Rochester transit system, as only two miles of it were actually in the (ex-canal) tunnel; but it could be taken to refer to the fact that it was a separate, rapid-transit system. And in fact, most of it ran in an open cut below the surface, crossed by bridges. The last passenger service was in 1956, although freight transports continued for some time after this. The tunnels continue to form part of Rochester’s historical legacy, if only for the controversy they generate: should they be used for a new public transport system (be it a pedestrian tunnel, or even a re-instated passage of the Erie Canal) or should they be filled up, finally relieving the city of maintenance costs? The discussion recently seems to have tilted the latter way.

In addition to providing more background, Strange Maps' post features a map showing all of the planned extensions of the city's subway system, a uchronical map showing what never--could never?-- have come to pass.