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Chicago's oldest elevated lines predate Boston's first, which opened in 1901 and now no longer exists.
What Boston has is the nation's oldest subway. It opened as a trolley tunnel in 1897, then, when the elevated opened, its trains ran through it for eight years until a parallel downtown rapid transit tunnel opened in 1909.
Talk of dismantling the Loop 'L' dates back to the 1920s; a book I bought on the history of "downtown" as an idea contained an editorial cartoon opposing a subway proposal floated then as sucking the life out of outlying neighborhood business districts; it depicted a downtown businessman wielding a "Loop Tube Magnet" that attracted people to it like iron filings.
Of course, now that the structure is a National Historic Landmark, any talk of removing it has now become moot. (I do remember reading articles about replacing it with subways on my first visit to Chicago in 1974.)
Keep in mind that Canada's first subway line didn't open until 1954.
Torontonians do take pride in the city's streetcars, I will allow, and the city is busy building an east-west light metro line across its northern reaches.
My post was not intended without using links, to be a history lessen as I could have. It was to use the video I chose to also claim Chicago's L is one of the top 5 under Iconic. Boston having the OLDEST SUBWAY is the technical truth links declare.
Chicago merely lumps all under The L..... subway portions or not that are just that.... portions. So that is why Boston for oldest I had a mere short sentence portion of as oldest.
All Chicago's lines were separate companies for most of its early 20th century life. Under the CTA name is when it became as one in the late 40s. Not going into a history there. I did not live in the 1920s Chicago and note every decade some portion of its private lines were to be considered for demolition. All though its history some were.... from whole lines, stations abandoned etc. I lived in Chicago late 70s 80s when IT WAS CONSIDERED for removal for a subway. That is why I used the 80s and once that was laid to rest.... it was to be saved for many more decades.
My 1980s comment of the major point the Loop L was almost decided to replace.... is certainly valid per this link.
From the link.
Landmarking and Historic Restoration
- After plans to replace the Loop Elevated with a series of subways were laid to rest in the early 1980s, the City of Chicago and the CTA set about rehabilitating the Loop Elevated, which had received deferred maintenance in anticipation of its replacement. Around the same time, the Loop Elevated was also determined to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Designation as being eligible for the National Register places the same protections on a public buildings whose maintenance and renovation use federal or state monies as actually being on the Register, per the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.
- In addition, an agreement between the CTA and the US Department of the Interior and the Illinois State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) protected the Loop Elevated structure but only required the restoration of one station, Quincy. (One other station, Adams/Wabash, was to be retained and rehabilitated but significantly modernized.
- All of the other stations would be rebuilt and some relocated.) The agreement provides specific protections for the station's historic elements.
I do not claim any knowledge of Bostons transit so do no talk on that. If I did I would use ALL links as to not have someone claim error. I won't touch Philly's and that would be for you to do with your knowledge of them. Always trouble to do so if I did and I never used Philly's system on visits anyway. Read your post on Boston's lines you have used and knowledge of and Philadelphia's of course. Still surprised more on them was not discussed here by you. Apparently, you do not see either as iconic top 5 for this thread. Yet mention Montreal, Toronto and Mexico City for something. Philadelphia even still has the Trolley's yet that Chicago does not.
The video I posted had 8 additional views showing in how many since I posted it in this thread a few hours ago. Since it was not a high-viewed video..... I assume those 8 came from the posting here. That was my intent of the post not a full history lesson that I would use links for and aspects directly from links as not to have some error claimed.
On Chicago's L. It celebrated its 125th birthday 3 yrs ago with a run of a 1923 built train that was saved and some other era trains used to give a tour run for the anniversary. Seems the CTA saved just a example of most of its L trains and Trolleys and the rest got reused somewhat as old Trolley's got some run on the L in the past or as most.... destroyed. Some videos show more of the narrow station and inside areas to ground-level. This one has the RIDE on the train.
Merely used this video for going on the 1923 train and announcer given a short history lesson.
Does not show much of the station itself as it got restored and finished a year later after the video.
This one at the Quincy Station that is as a Chicago Historic Landmark that year and cannot then be destroyed and station restored as close to original as they could. Problem was found out the color paint was wrong as it was actually the Primerpaint color and not the first color over the primer as layers were removed a bit too far.
I would have to say that NYC is the most iconic transit system in the world by a good margin, not just in North America. No other transit system comes close to being as widely recognized or has had multiple movies and shows centered around it. It's part of the fabric of the city like no other. Also if you haven't been to the NY Transit Museum it's definitely worth a day trip.
"New York, New York, a wonderful town
The Bronx is up and the Battery's down
The people ride in a hole in the ground
New York, New York — it's a wonderful town!"
—from the movie musical "On the Town" (1949)
Though if we're going to detour to songs about transit, I'd say that two others rank even higher than this one, which mentions the subway in passing:
"The Trolley Song" from "Meet Me in St. Louis" (1944) — however, even though the film takes place in St. Louis in the runup to the 1904 World's Fair, I don't think it's really a song about St. Louis' trolleys specifically; they just happen to be there
"MTA" (aka "Charlie on the MTA", 1957) — This Kingston Trio song may well be the most famous song about mass transit ever performed. The sad tale of the guy who couldn't get off the train because he didn't have the exit fare surcharge is so well known the MBTA named its stored-value fare card for the guy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by masssachoicetts
Agreed because America was so pro-transit since the development of the Subway in Boston. New York, Chicago and Philadelphia followed after and became important as well.
However, its funny because all major transit systems (Bar DC) fell to crap in the past 20 years. Terrible OTP, Cancellations, Lack of funding, deaths on tracks, lack of cleanliness.
We ARE Iconic for transit in general... but I don't think that will last much longer given how seamless other cities function with their trains.
Did you sleep through the 2009 Fort Totten crash?
That wreck — the second fatality accident and one of several injury incidents in the (then) 33-year history of Metrorail operations, one of the (if not the) worst accident records in American public transit — revealed that Metro's vaunted automatic train control systems had not been properly maintained. On top of that, it also exposed an operating culture that emphasized covering one's a** over ensuring passenger and worker safety and a serious neglect of maintenance systemwide. The revelations embarrassed the agency into a crash program to bring the system back to a state of good repair in a hurry.
Also, Philadelphia's system didn't fall to pieces in the last 20 years, though it did have one major embarrassment with a new railcar order for Regeional Rail. It is, however, a testimony to the dedication of the agency's maintenance and repair crews that it didn't, for it had some aging infrastructure that was on the verge of collapse. The crews managed to keep a key bridge on a Regional Rail line in service through constant small patching until the Commonwealth finally came through with adequate funding for the state's public transit agencies.
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