Reeko48

Jun 12 2009, 09:22 PM

If that happens the MFL ridership might go down.

CACrafter88bk2504

Jun 12 2009, 10:26 PM

Reeko48

Jun 12 2009, 09:22 PM

If that happens the MFL ridership might go down.

If a subway line was to be built somewhere in the Roxborough area, Roxborough(Manayunk & Andorra residents) could kiss the 9 & the 27 goodbye & good riddance.

TRANSIT_FREAK

Jun 12 2009, 07:20 PM

I would like to see the BSS extended up on the rossevelt blvd. I heard the subway read on Railrod.net the subway tunnel runs all the way up cottman avenue.

TRANSIT_FREAK

Jun 12 2009, 07:20 PM

I would like to see the BSS extended up on the rossevelt blvd. I heard the subway read on Railrod.net the subway tunnel runs all the way up cottman avenue.

tanoaj

Jun 12 2009, 10:42 PM

I dont think the 9 or the 27 would be gone just because of a subway built under henry avenue. Look at broad street, there's the C and the BSL running underneath.

Mark

Sep 6 2006, 07:58 PM

I tried to post this on Subchat.com, but someting's wrong with their server at the present time. I posted this here as an emergency measure.




After reading <a href=http://www.subchat.com/read.asp?Id=305672>this thread</a> that mentioned the Henry Ave Bridge Subway Tunnels, it jogged my memory of once seeing plans to build a subway running from Roxborough to Darby.

This was one of the grandiose plans of the City Of Philadelphia to build a large subway system. The original plan was unveiled in 1915, and much of it was based on the BMT lines in Brooklyn. The only part of the plan that got built, was the Broad St Subway and the Ridge/Locust Spur. The remainder of the plan died because of a lack of money [the Depression hit a year after the BSS was completed to City Hall] and the usual BS political shenanigans in Philly.

The first serious attempt was done in 1913, called "Report of the Transit Commissioner", prepared by A. Merritt Taylor, who was President of Philadelphia and West Chester Traction Company. It proposed a lot of stuff, including the Broad Street Subway, the Frankford El, an subway/elevated line from Torresdale to Overbrook via Torresdale Avenue, Bridge Street, Richmond Street, Girard Avenue, and Lancaster Avenue, and a loop subway to connect it to Center City, a takeover of the PRR's Chestnut Hill Branch, and the lines you mentioned, though they would have been in different routings.

The line would start somewhere in Roxborough [it was never mentioned where], run under Henry Ave. When the bridge over the Wissahickon was built, subway tunnels was included for a future build. now the proposed subway would run under henry Ave, 29th St, Ridge Ave, 8th St, Locust St, under the Schuylkill River, then find its way to Woodland Ave where it would emerge at or around the present 40th St portal, and run as an El over Woodland Ave and Main St to the 9th and Main Darby Terminal.

Those lines were always separate routings. The Roxborough Line would have been a combination subway/elevated route, with the East Falls segment being in subway, and the segment in North Philly being elevated. It would have run the length of 29th Street, going underground near where the current CSX tunnel ends near 27th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. After passing the site of the Art Museum, it would have run under the Parkway, meeting the BSS just north of City Hall...if you look at the north end of the station, along the local tracks, you can see provisions for the junction. The only tunnel proposed under Ridge Avenue between Broad Street and 29th Street was one proposed by the Pennsylvania Railroad which would have allowed its east-west mainline trains to serve Center City, with a station to be built where Suburban Station was built. It wasn't; a later loop to be built S. of 30th Street Station was never built, and the big-name East-West PRR trains could never serve Center City...but enough of this...let's get back to the story...the Darby line was to operate as a branch off the Market Street Elevated just east of the High Line, following it and the West Chester Branch until it met Woodland Avenue, and go as noted. This idea lasted until the early 1920's, when it was discovered that the Frankford El's trains had brought the Market Street Subway/Elevated to the saturation point as far as throughput was concerned...in the 1920's, during the rush, there was a train in either direction on the Market Street Subway every 98 seconds...imaging being the dispatcher on that line in the rush...the IRT may have looked simple by comparison...also imagine trains pulling out of 15th Street WB looking like a BSS train after an Eagles game crowd has let out...I've seen reports that had el CARS carrying 190 passengers on them...anyway, the City planners decided that the Darby line needed a new CC entry, and it was decided to use Locust Street,

Probable stations were:

Roxborough Terminal [whereever it was to be located], Walnut Lane, Midvale Ave, Women's Medical College [either Abbotsford or Roberts Ave], 29th and Allegheney, 29th and Lehigh, 29th and Dauphin, Ridge and Columbia, Ridge and Girard, the present Ridge/Broad/Fairmount Station, Spring Garden, Vine St, 8th and Market, 9th-10th Locust, 12th-13th Locust, 15th-16th Locust, maybe a station at 18th st, or a station at 20th, 22nd-23rd and Locust, then under the river to 34th and Woodland, then the station at 40th and Woodland [either an El station, or a subwy station before emerging as an El], 49th and Woodland, 58th and Woodland, 65th and Woodland, Island Rd, and finally, Darby Terminal.

I suspect you can add stations at 54th, 62nd, and 70th Streets as well The station at 54th Street would have evened the distance between 49th and 58th Street, and connected with the G bus. The 62nd Street station would have served the Brill complex. In addition, the location of the current Subway-Surface station at 37th and Spruce supposedly was done with the line in mind, with that station being a transfer point between trains and trolleys. By this time, the west end of the line was changed, to run along Island Avenue to serve PHL.

Why this subway was never built? Well the BSS ate up so much money in the initial segment, that the City only had enough money to finish the one line. Also many of the city's rich and powerful citizens lived in the Rittenhouse Sq area, and they put their foot down on no more subway construction through their neighborhood [that why the Locust St subway ends abruptly at 18th St.]. The money the City spent on the subway's City-Hall/Olney segment was responsible for the fact that the Locust St line, and the South Broad St Subway was built, but remained empty [no tracks, signals, etc.] for years. The City managed to scrounge enough money for the South Broad Subway to Snyder Ave in the 1930's, and the Ridge Ave Subway to 8th St. The DRBJC [predecessor to the DRPA] built the short Bridge Line to connect to the Ridge Ave Subway in 1936. In the 1953 with the help of the DRBJC, the City finally equipped the Locust St Subway with tracks and signals and opened the line to Bridge Line Trains [only on a limited 6am to 7pm weekday only schedule which lasted until the PATCO opening in 1969. Nights and weekends the Bridge Line ran
to 8th and Market then to Girard Ave in a round-robin operation. In 1969, PATCO began the current 24/7 operation of Locust St Subway.]

The Ridge Avenue line opened to 8th and Market in 1932, just as the Depression was reaching its bottom. That fact, along with declining tax revenues, forced cutbacks on these lines, as well as the Market Street Subway extension, which had their shells built, but nothing else. As you noted, the City found some funds in the late 1930's to finish equipping the segment of the BSS that had been built in South Philly, but the rest sat until after WWII. I never heard of any DRJC(or, after July, 1952, DRPA) funds being used for the Locust Street Subway in the early 1950's.

The failure of the Roxborough-Darby Line was indicative of the City's failure to expand the subway system beyond the present structure. Minor changes [Market St tunnel extension/Woodland Ave Trolley Subway, Fern Rock Extension, Pattison extension, relocation of the El to the I-95 median between Girard and 2nd St] were made over the years, but when a major extension of the Subway system was proposed, the plans languished due to political inaction, NIMBYism, and the general inability to follow up on the plans.

NeoArtic7101

Jun 13 2009, 06:07 AM

does anyone know where i can find that map of the old planned subway system or can someone post it on here?