Yep...they give tours about once a year and often you can get priority tickets through the AIA. they go fast, though.
Its pretty cool down there but since so little of it is complete there isn't much to see. some spray-painted tags, some homeless person's bedroll, and some mammoth water pipes....currently that's what the main tunnel under central parkway is doing, just running a roughly 36" water main.
its a good tour and very informative. i suggest you do it at least once! none of my photos really came out otherwise I'd share.
Don't ever pay more than $10 to go on this tour. The time I went it was only $10. They supposedly *only* offer tours once a year or something and I've seen people try to charge $50 for them. What a rip off. It's interesting to see but for $50 they should serve us dinner down there by candlelight, you know?
hckybg, the light rail will probably never work in cincinnati nor would they be able to utilize any of the city-core tunnels for a light rail. evidently they did a study of this and it wasn't feasible...the tunnels were too small and the turns too sharp from what i recall having worked for the city's architectural dept.... any lightrail in this city would be done at grade and most likely run along the river on existing and abandoned rail lines....east to mariemont through columbia tusculum and west towards the anderson ferry. I think OKI has pretty much abandoned the concept due to a lack of interest from voters and unless they could incorporate some type of gas-price induced mass transit in a replanning of the I-75 corridor it will never happen. the last good idea i heard for the I-75 corridor involved express lanes for trucks and through traffic when they 'straighten out' the curves north of paddock.
I grew up in Cincy, and the abandoned subway is a big piece of local lore. In addition to the portals visible on I-75, there are also air vents along Central Parkway that indicate the tunnel's presence.
The story about the tunnels being mistakenly built too small for subway cars is a local urban legend. In fact, the Cincinnati subway was built to the same specifications as (what is now) the Red Line in Boston, which handles fairly large subway cars. The completed station shells in Cincinnati bear a remarkable resemblance to the older subway stations in Cambridge such as Kendall Square and Central Square.
Most light rail cars could easily fit in the tunnels, but the problem occurs at the stations. The platforms are built with high-level boarding in mind (a la a typical subway like in NYC), while light rail cars usually have low-level boarding platforms (a la Portland's MAX system).
IIRC, the water main was added in the 1950's, and relocating this main would be a major obstacle in using the tunnels for any sort of transit use. The other issue is that the tunnels pretty much bypass the busiest parts of downtown, which IMO was probably a big factor in the project being abandoned.
And of course, all of these technical issues are in addition to Cincinnati's rabidly conservative politcal climate. It's a sad day when even Houston of all places has a light rail system, but Cincy doesn't.
i do recall this article from when i worked for the county planning commission: link
I am not sure that is wasn't feasible - they wouldnt have run the light rail all the way through the tunnel but just through a portion along columbia pkwy. the plan would have put light rail throughout the county, not just on the east-west corridor. i agree that the odds of this happening in the short term are rather low, and that 75 will happen first, but i assure it will eventually happen in some form or another - i lived in cincinnati for the first 22 years of my life and have seen this happen many times. it may be in the wrong place when it is complete and fifty years late, but it will happen. as you may know, the riverfront transit center in front of the underground railroad freedom center is for buses now, but was built to accomodate below and/or above ground mass transit.
People in cincinnati - or areas from a galaxy far far away that refer to themselves as part of cincinnati(outer burbs) - abandon their cars to ride in comfort and ease to a scary and abandoned downtown filled with crazed homeless people and drugs?!?!
Cincinnati's Subway
Has anyone ever been down there?
We have a subway?
Yep...they give tours about once a year and often you can get priority tickets through the AIA. they go fast, though.
Its pretty cool down there but since so little of it is complete there isn't much to see. some spray-painted tags, some homeless person's bedroll, and some mammoth water pipes....currently that's what the main tunnel under central parkway is doing, just running a roughly 36" water main.
its a good tour and very informative. i suggest you do it at least once! none of my photos really came out otherwise I'd share.
Don't ever pay more than $10 to go on this tour. The time I went it was only $10. They supposedly *only* offer tours once a year or something and I've seen people try to charge $50 for them. What a rip off. It's interesting to see but for $50 they should serve us dinner down there by candlelight, you know?
They wanted to resurrect it for the light rail project that didn't pass tax referendum...
maybe in a few years they will try again.
p.s. you can see it going south on I 75, a couple miles north of the city, under central parkway. there is a big door on the left of the road.
hckybg, the light rail will probably never work in cincinnati nor would they be able to utilize any of the city-core tunnels for a light rail. evidently they did a study of this and it wasn't feasible...the tunnels were too small and the turns too sharp from what i recall having worked for the city's architectural dept.... any lightrail in this city would be done at grade and most likely run along the river on existing and abandoned rail lines....east to mariemont through columbia tusculum and west towards the anderson ferry. I think OKI has pretty much abandoned the concept due to a lack of interest from voters and unless they could incorporate some type of gas-price induced mass transit in a replanning of the I-75 corridor it will never happen. the last good idea i heard for the I-75 corridor involved express lanes for trucks and through traffic when they 'straighten out' the curves north of paddock.
http://www.thruthevalley.com/info.htm
http://www.i75millcreekexpressway.com/alternatives.htm
I grew up in Cincy, and the abandoned subway is a big piece of local lore. In addition to the portals visible on I-75, there are also air vents along Central Parkway that indicate the tunnel's presence.
The story about the tunnels being mistakenly built too small for subway cars is a local urban legend. In fact, the Cincinnati subway was built to the same specifications as (what is now) the Red Line in Boston, which handles fairly large subway cars. The completed station shells in Cincinnati bear a remarkable resemblance to the older subway stations in Cambridge such as Kendall Square and Central Square.
Most light rail cars could easily fit in the tunnels, but the problem occurs at the stations. The platforms are built with high-level boarding in mind (a la a typical subway like in NYC), while light rail cars usually have low-level boarding platforms (a la Portland's MAX system).
IIRC, the water main was added in the 1950's, and relocating this main would be a major obstacle in using the tunnels for any sort of transit use. The other issue is that the tunnels pretty much bypass the busiest parts of downtown, which IMO was probably a big factor in the project being abandoned.
And of course, all of these technical issues are in addition to Cincinnati's rabidly conservative politcal climate. It's a sad day when even Houston of all places has a light rail system, but Cincy doesn't.
i do recall this article from when i worked for the county planning commission: link
I am not sure that is wasn't feasible - they wouldnt have run the light rail all the way through the tunnel but just through a portion along columbia pkwy. the plan would have put light rail throughout the county, not just on the east-west corridor. i agree that the odds of this happening in the short term are rather low, and that 75 will happen first, but i assure it will eventually happen in some form or another - i lived in cincinnati for the first 22 years of my life and have seen this happen many times. it may be in the wrong place when it is complete and fifty years late, but it will happen. as you may know, the riverfront transit center in front of the underground railroad freedom center is for buses now, but was built to accomodate below and/or above ground mass transit.
People in cincinnati - or areas from a galaxy far far away that refer to themselves as part of cincinnati(outer burbs) - abandon their cars to ride in comfort and ease to a scary and abandoned downtown filled with crazed homeless people and drugs?!?!
For the love of god, are you crazy..........
conservative political climate, nice.
Check out this post, I'm looking for a subleaser:
http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=28051_0_42_0_C
i'm a cincinnati urban legend
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