Rochester's Subway tunnel to be filled in

I had lunch with my Mom yesterday(she was born in 1925, grew up on Rochester's east side and remained a city resident until 1956) and asked her if she ever rode the subway. She replied that she only rode it once, (I'm guessing during the 1940's) when she was at a downtown bar, met a man, and they boarded the subway at Times Square(Exchange and Broad St.) and took it to his home in Brighton. She didn't volunteer how the story ended and I didn't ask!

About 60 citizens attended a meeting with the city last night to discuss a $21 million plan to fill the part of the subway tunnel in downtown Rochester. All attendees oppose filling the tunnel for reasons ranging from not burying local history, restoring the tunnel as a tourist attraction, or constructing light rail rapid transit. Here's a link to the article in today's Democrat & Chronicle:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/app ... /1002/NEWS

Broad Street is considered a bridge because it was built over the passageway and it is one of the worst rated spans in the state, Krapf said.
Hack added that the problem with the canal and light rail ideas is that no one has come up with the money to pursue them.

Duh, it's a bridge. Just because you put dirt under it doesnt mean that it stops being a bridge and that the maintainence issues are any different. Wasn't the Broad Street tunnel deck completely rebuilt in the 1970s?

--otto-

and they arent planning to fill in under the Broad street bridge anyway..
so thats irrelevant to the debate.
I dont understand why that reference to the Broad street bridge was even brought up...
there must be more to it that that, the D&C probably left bits of the conversation out of their article..

Scot

they must restore the subway to its former glory

My 2 cents:

It would be a shame to see any sort of dirt fill project go forward. If you look at any cities that have been revitalized in the past 15-20 years, key elements to those successes incorporate older design elements and structural reuse. We have become such a wasteful society, just tear it down and build something new. IMHO, everything built today is done very cheaply, with little architectural class or care, just cinderblock, sheet board and concrete. And is useless 20 years later. Just lok at all of the school buildings from the 60' & 70's, gone already & being torn down.

The city would be better off investing in measures to preserve the infrastructure until a good and well financed plan comes forward. For all of you who think Rochester is in the dumps, just wait, you'll see that parts will transform over time into nice and desirable places again. 25 years ago, San Diego, CA, Philadelphia, PA and Portland, Maine had terribly dumpy cities and crime ridden areas, all of which have been redeveloped and property values have soared, and people live, work and walk in these areas. It happens, investors see reasonable real estate, and they start to make it happen.

Will happen in the next five years, probably not, but efforts such as the Rail-Trail initiative and ferry have to be appreciated. How they are financed is another story entirely, but that is not the subject of this post.

I have friends in their lates 20's who are trying to move back to Rochester who currently live in Philly because even though they bought a brick row house and make good $$$$, they miss having a yard, and affordable groceries, and could have 3x as big a place for half the price they paid in Philly.

In closing, the best use for that tunnel would be to stabilize whatever needs such urgent attention until a better reuse can be found, whether light-rail, shopping, water-way, whatever.

Brooks

Maybe Rochester could follow the example set by Austin, TX, where an eco-tourist attraction has been created under a downtown bridge. It is now the largest bat colony in North America! Click on the link to learn more:

http://www.batcon.org/discover/congress.html

OK, just so we're clear:

The part of Broad Street/Subway that spans the Genesee River is called the acqueduct. That was how the Erie Canal crossed the Genesee River. The acqueduct is under consideration for the pedestrian mall project.

The rest of the Broad Street tunnel is indeed a bridge. This is the area that they want to fill- from Exchange Street, westward. Pack it with dirt all you want, but that deck still remains.

-otto-

Otto:

As you can recall recently when they decided to remove the bridge at Webster Ave. on our NYW&B.

It was filled in some what under the old Webster Ave. station but not under the Road itself.

They finally decided to remove the bridge under the road and fill it in properly. It was too expensive to maintain the routine inspections that were being done on the rest of the exposed structure underneath.

Charles D

Filling the tunnel with dirt is not as crazy an idea as it sounds. Mine tunnels are reclaimed this way all the time. It has to be done right to prevent settlement in the future, but it can indeed be done.

You can cut the tunnel into segments and introduce the dirt as a slurry (as mines do with their mine waste) with or without a bit of grout to help bind things together. There are probably some compaction methods as well, but I'm not as familiar with them.

I agree with the others on here. If Rochester is to grow in the future, it
must address the highway congestion that takes place there and in most
other metropolitan locations.
The politicians were very short sighted in 1956 when they closed down the
subway. They should NOT be so short sighted today that they would fill it
in. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Does not make any sense to me.
Noel Weaver

As usual, Noel makes a great point. And consider this: why not tie the old subway into a light rail system that reuses the abandonned portions of the Falls ORad and the Hojack Line? The D&C has reported that the next major growth spurt in Monroe County will be on the west side so let's start planning for the future, instead of muddling throught it until the rush hour is an even bigger traffic snarl!

Everyone's got plans for reactivating the Suwbay... but someone has to come up with the money to make those plans reality. There's plenty of planning going on out there, and it's all been largely ignored by the local and state government because no one has been able to identify a source of funding.

Check out...
http://www.ggw.org/rrtc/

and check out...
http://www.rochestertrolleyrail.com/

Some of these plans even go back to the 1950s...
http://railroad.net/articles/railfannin ... sb_map.gif

-otto-

better yet check out www.gtcmpo.org for the real poop

From downtown Rochester you basically can drive to any point in the county in 20 minutes. A subway, light rail, trolley, etc. would be interesting, but certainly a poor use of any public transportation funds.

What Rochester needs is a state which is interested in creating and keeping jobs.

Rochester lost a lot of companies because of NY taxes. Taylor Instruments, Fannie Farmer Candies, French's Mustard, Hickock Belts, Champion Knitwear, headquarters of Xerox and General Signal instantly come to mind.

While I was there they proposed a local income tax. They should look and see how that has worked for Yonkers.