Philadelphia's Ghost Subway Line that's Rising from the Dead

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Time Stamps:
0:00 Intro
0:43 Philly Ghost Lines
1:38 Roosevelt Blvd Subway?
3:06 Housing
4:10 Timeline
6:22 What you can do to help
7:20 Outro

[Westlander]

Perhaps the most shameful ghost subway in the country is the unfinished New York subway tunnels connecting Brooklyn to Staten Island. They’re still there under Owl’s Head park, abandoned since 1925. Staten Island remains the only borough of New York without subway service. It does have the Staten Island Railroad, but it doesn’t connect to the rest of the system.

[chairmanlmao]

Its a real shame that the Cincinnati subway never came to fruition because of the Great Depression. Despite the tunnels technically being abandoned, the city has to continually maintain the tunnels so they don't collapse right underneath the city. At that point if you're already using manpower and resources to maintain these tunnels, why not just complete the damn thing and have a functional subway

[CadetSF]

I rented apartments in NE Philly for 3 years and the BLVD was inescapable (most major commercial development is around it, sometimes it just is the most direct/fastest route anywhere) but no matter how I was using it, crossing on foot, driving the entire length, riding a bus, I always felt like I was like roulette with my life with the way people drive there. A subway line would be such a major win for the city

[verrenyeux]

I drove the Roosevelt BLVD daily while I was a student going to and from Philly hospitals for internships, etc. I say without a single iota of exaggeration that I would roll up my windows so I could intermittently just scream at the top of my lungs inside my car while I was on that hellish, absolute curse of a road. I would have taken a metro/subway in a heartbeat to avoid it, no matter the cost.

[mattmac]

I’m a daily commuter in Philadelphia who lives .1 miles off of Roosevelt Blvd. A Blvd. line would be life changing in terms of my commute. Your research for this video was excellent.

[dihydrogenmonoxide]

Wake up babe, new armchair urbanist vid just dropped

[Pensyfan]

When it comes to gaining widespread support for a transit project, it's all about raising awareness of the cause, which is what you and so many other transit enthusiasts have been doing for so many rail projects across the country. Thank you for your efforts and keep up the great work.

[muyaho]

Hey, for what it's worth, Toronto is finally building a subway line that was first proposed more than 100 years ago (Downtown Relief Line/Ontario Line). So don't lose hope and keep pushing for it!

[monolithic]

When I used to work at the Sears distribution center back in 1989-1990, in order to get there after getting off the bus, I used to walk in that tunnel underneath the Blvd and see that station. They kept it clean and it had orange tiles like some of the stations on the Broad Street Line and it would always baffle me why it was there and why it wasn’t finished. Like all things that have come and gone, I wish I was heavy into photography because memories are all I have of it now. smh

[kariminalo]

Reminds me of the abandoned Kymlinge ghost station on the blue line metro here in Stockholm. It was supposed to be one of the farther suburbs as a result of post-war housing construction, but due to the oil crisis in the 70's they abandoned the plans utilize the station. Now they are proposing plans to build housing after more than 50 years in the same area and hopefully utilize the ghost station. It even sparked its own urban legend back in the 1980s, where teenagers would spread the myth that if you happened to board an unusual old ghost train - metro rolling stock "Silverpilen" which, was unpainted and maintained its Silver aluminium livery, you'd end up dead as the train wouldn't stop anywhere else except for Kymlinge ghost station, where all the dead passengers leave.

[PhilLesh]

Even as a kid, every time I see or hear "SEPTA" I don't envision Philly's subway trains, I imagine a large public bathroom or porta potties.

[ethhein]

Thank you Alan. We have many similar style Boulevards/Stroads here in the midwest and it drives me nuts at how poorly designed most of our roads are.

[gt-gurb]

The problem is the Septa board and it's focus on suburban routes and not city routes. This board almost got a rail line from King of Prussia to Norristown a distance of approximately 4 miles at a cost of 2 billion dollars but the Feds wouldn't assist in funding. The Roosevelt Boulevard line is a no brainer. The population density and the distance from Hunting Park to Neshammity is 3 times the distance of the KOP line. Population density at least the same difference. The Boulevard is routinely one of the most treacherous routes in the US. All the while the Speta board twiddles it fingers.

[cameron_o]

Keep going to the Blvd subway meetings, a septa rep was at the last one and we're picking up traction!

[AlexCab_]

I really like the videos centered around transit in Philadelphia. Philadelphia and Chicago are probably the last affordable densely populated major cities with reliable transit.

[hplgtmd]

If always baffled me just how little subway lines there are in Philly. I always figured Philly can use more subway lines to connect more neighborhoods.

[tracedehaven]

You kind of glossed over the significance of the transit project you mentioned. It did not just "connect two downtown stations." Historically, Philadelphia had two commuter rail systems which competed: The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Railroad. Both systems terminated in Center City, along Market Street, the major East-West thoroughfare. In the aftermath of the Penn Central bankruptcy, when Conrail was created, the commuter systems of several eastern cities were turned over to the municipalities to run. So SEPTA inherited both the PRR & Reading systems. There was some redundancy, particularly in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood, which was generally upper income and served by both lines, east & west of Germantown Avenue. The alternative to the Roosevelt Blvd extension was to cut an underground tunnel that would connect the terminal stations of both railroads. This would allow trains to run through center city instead of terminating and allow point-to-point connections that had never existed before. It was touted as saving money by streamlining overall operations. I thought it was a great idea, though I don't know whether it really saved money in the long run. The project had some issues. The PRR & Reading had different signaling systems, for one thing. Pretty sure it went over budget. Was supposed to be completed in time for the Bicentennial in 1976, but was not completed until around 1981. This is not to downplay the importance of an extension to Roosevelt Blvd. But I think Frank Rizzo knew where the bread was buttered. The Northeast is mostly blue-collar working class, whereas the transit tunnel would theoretically benefit all Philadelphians including those in wealthy Chestnut Hill and the Mainline. There was talk of eliminating redundancy in the Chestnut Hill lines, but that never materialized and that neighborhood is still served by two lines with stations sometimes only a dozen blocks apart.

[LemonCkies]

This makes a lot of sense. I’m from Philly. I grew up in Germantown and went to high school in the Northeast. We all joked that kids who grew up in the Norheast never leave. While everyone else goes downtown to hang out the Northeast kids literally just stay in their neighborhoods. I never really realized that the northeast does not have a subway system. Living in g town I could catch the subway, bus, or regional rail. I had options but they didn’t.

[tomjones]

As a resident of the area, I'd like to add this comment. The Sears Station that you describe is still there. At 7:20 on your video, you are following a van up the Roosevelt Boulevard and you see an air-vent on the left side of the screen. It's about 2 feet tall, square, and gray in color. At that point, on either side of the roadway are steps going down into the subway station. It should be cleaned and opened as a safe way for people to cross the 12 land boulevard, but it isn't. It is a home for the homeless.

[DjbossNA]

It’s so crazy that this isn’t a nobrainer, 400k people live in northeast Philadelphia and all they have are like 3 busses that come every 15 minutes or better.