Is Pittsburgh the smallest city in the world with a subway?

[_Buster]

Originally Posted by gg

There is a subway in Pittsburgh. Sorry but the damn thing goes under a large river. it is a subway period. I mean come on. Enough.

Thank you! it's just ridiculous for people to argue otherwise. Although there is I think a grey area for what they are, it doesn't apply to Pittsburgh's. Yeah going under a river... not may cities have that. The multiple underground stations make it a subway without question. I think this probably applies to Newark's and Camden's also, but haven't been on those personally. Cleveland's is really the grey area to me. Its got one station downtown that is kind of underground. It might be technically but I wouldn't consider it a subway really.

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by james777

I agree that Pittsburgh and Cleveland do not have subways, just trolleys that happen to go underground in the densely populated business districts. They can call the stations what they want; it is just a trolley.

Cleveland's Red Line is not a trolley, but a heavy-rail service, similar in technology to the older legacy subway/el/rapid transit systems like Boston's, New York's and Philadelphia (although, with the exception of a portion of Boston's Blue Line, Cleveland's Red Line is different since it collects power from wires and not third rails.

Besides, I think this is nitpicking, anyway. Systems should not be eliminated solely because they don't utilize heavy-rail trains... A subway is a grade-separated rapid transit line running below the surface, usually directly below a street. There's no specificity, I've seen, regarding the technology the system uses... That's why most pundits consider Boston's Green Line the oldest subway in America, even though it did, and still does, utilize surface streetcars in tunnels. This is as it should be imho...

Originally Posted by _Buster

Thank you! it's just ridiculous for people to argue otherwise. Although there is I think a grey area for what they are, it doesn't apply to Pittsburgh's. Yeah going under a river... not may cities have that. The multiple underground stations make it a subway without question. I think this probably applies to Newark's and Camden's also, but haven't been on those personally. Cleveland's is really the grey area to me. Its got one station downtown that is kind of underground. It might be technically but I wouldn't consider it a subway really.

I've never seen where multiple stations make a system a subway. Yes, downtown Cleveland has one station below a street -- Prospect Avenue, in this case, but it's still a subway. The .3 mile Red Line tunnel travels under Ohio SR.237 then under an airport parking lot before reaching its Airport terminal. Why shouldn't this be considered a subway?

[Marv95]

Originally Posted by TheProf

Correction (of myself): Newark actually has 3 actually subway stations on its City Subway: Washington Street, Military Park and Penn Station.

4. Warren St./NJIT. After that station westbound stops are open-cut or surface into Bloomfield.

There's a 2nd leg of this system but it's surface between Broad St. Station and NJPAC, then it runs underground to Penn.

Originally Posted by spoonman109

The trains even look like the T just painted white. I’m sure ridership is not great on it bc the areas it serves outside of Newark are not desirable really. I used it a few times in Newark bc it goes to the universities there and connects with the PATH and the train to New York in the basement of Penn station.

Ridership on the NCS isn't great because the coverage is small. The line is only 5 miles. Plus there are connecting bus routes that go towards Penn Station just like the NCS so not many folks are gonna waste an extra fare or extra time getting off a downtown bus, walking down the steps, waiting for the train, hopping on the NCS and getting off downtown, unless it's on the outskirts or the "burbs", or if downtown streets are a mess and they're forced to transfer to the NCS. Even then, ridership for its size is decent as the trains are sometimes standing room only during rush hour and weekends. People work downtown and the Central/North Wards are densely populated. The system had over 5.5 million rides this past fiscal year. https://www.njtransit.com/pdf/FactsAtaGlance.pdf

[PghYinzer]

Originally Posted by TheProf

Cleveland's Red Line is not a trolley, but a heavy-rail service, similar in technology to the older legacy subway/el/rapid transit systems like Boston's, New York's and Philadelphia (although, with the exception of a portion of Boston's Blue Line, Cleveland's Red Line is different since it collects power from wires and not third rails.

Besides, I think this is nitpicking, anyway. Systems should not be eliminated solely because they don't utilize heavy-rail trains... A subway is a grade-separated rapid transit line running below the surface, usually directly below a street. There's no specificity, I've seen, regarding the technology the system uses... That's why most pundits consider Boston's Green Line the oldest subway in America, even though it did, and still does, utilize surface streetcars in tunnels. This is as it should be imho...



I've never seen where multiple stations make a system a subway. Yes, downtown Cleveland has one station below a street -- Prospect Avenue, in this case, but it's still a subway. The .3 mile Red Line tunnel travels under Ohio SR.237 then under an airport parking lot before reaching its Airport terminal. Why shouldn't this be considered a subway?

Those stations sound more like a garage for the trains! j/k

I would think for it to be a subway you would need to be able to enter one station and exit another all below grade, however maybe you can take Cleveland’s from the airport to Tower City and do as I described above.

[_Buster]

Originally Posted by james777

I believe Rennes. France is the smallest city in the world with a subway.

Nice find. Their system is light rail, and its also a subway. Population 215,000 and metro area less than 1 million!

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by PghYinzer

Those stations sound more like a garage for the trains! j/k

I would think for it to be a subway you would need to be able to enter one station and exit another all below grade, however maybe you can take Cleveland’s from the airport to Tower City and do as I described above.

Yes, Cleveland has 2 individual stations below the surface/under streets, but there's no section, at present, where you can travel station-to-station underground, if that's your definition of a true subway. Cleveland could have, and should have, built a downtown distributor subway. It didn't, and I don't see that happening anytime soon given the city's population loss, even though downtown has grown exponentially, resident-wise, even since 2000.

That said, Cleveland isn't hurt as much as other cities would be under these circumstances. For one thing, it's a very compact downtown tightly centered on Public Square, where the one "underground" station exists.

More importantly, though, is Cleveland is tremendously advantaged -- as are all similar cities-- by having trains access downtown via a grade-separated ROW. And Cleveland's rapid transit (and inter-city passenger train) access was built at tremendous expense, with open cuts and large .7 mile 4-track viaduct over the Flats and Cuyahoga River. There are other unused, extant subway routes I hope, someday, the City exploits.

One is the old streetcar-subway deck under the Detroit-Superior (Veteran's Memorial) Bridge which actually predated the massive Terminal Tower/Union Station complex (Tower City, today) finished in 1930 a few blocks away. The original plan was that streetcars from the West Side would continue under Superior a few blocks to a Boston T/Park Street-type massive underground trolley terminal with lines branching east under Euclid and Superior Aves as well as SE under Ontario Street, thus funneling all surface streetcars off of tight, highly-congested Public Square ... Ironically, the issue still plagues Public Square today with pedestrians dodging diesel buses (and their fumes), albeit with substantially less traffic than the streetcars of yesteryear when the automobile either didn't exist or was in its infancy. The recently (2 years ago) reconfigured Public Square removed most buses from terminating in the more unified square, although, still too many pass through for my taste. ... A new configuration could have LRTs veering off at the eastern end of the bridge and over to the existing eastern end of the Red Line river viaduct and into Tower City where tracks and ROW still access the now-unused but extant old Shaker Rapid terminal. (I realized how doable such a project was a few years ago when RTA diverted all westbound rail traffic to/through the old Shaker terminal while they rebuilt the through westbound track (and they're planning on doing this again as other Tower City Rapid tracks must be rebuilt.

The other partial subway ROW is a Van Sweringen-built, grade-separated portal, off the main eastern rapid transit portal, that veers under Huron Road ... then ends. Planners had hoped to exploit this portal in the 1990s for the Dual Hub subway under Euclid to University Circle.... Sadly that plan fizzled.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by _Buster

I didn't look into it, but thought it might be. Yes Cleveland has one and its smaller in terms of metro area, but by technical city limits, its larger. I can't think of any other candidates, although there may be some in Europe or Asia. Don't include things like airport people mover 'subways' that aren't in the city core.

I think you have to define what you mean by larger or smaller.

DEFINITION #1) Boston is less land area than Pittsburgh, but they have the MTA

DEFINITION #2) Sacramento is a smaller Metropolitan statistical area than Pittsburgh, but it's light rail is 17 miles longer.

Pittsburgh, PA MSA 2,333,367 Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton, PA-OH-WV CSA
Sacramento–Roseville–Arden-Arcade, CA MSA 2,324,884 Sacramento-Roseville, CA CSA

The Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) is the largest mass transit service in the metro area and includes a 26-mile subway/light rail system, all serving the central core.

Sacramento has three light rail routes, the Blue Line, Green Line, and Gold Line, along 42.9 mi of right-of-way that serve Sacramento and its immediate suburbs.

DEFINITION #3) City population: Cincinnati is smaller than Pittsburgh
A single streetcar line, the Cincinnati Bell Connector, runs between The Banks, Downtown, and Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine in a 3.6-mile loop. It opened in 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Bell_Connector

I don't know how much of Pittsburgh rail line is underground. The Cincinnati Bell Connector is probably above ground the entire length
http://www.portauthority.org/paac/apps/maps/TLines.pdf

[_Buster]

Come on people its not difficult. First I made no "Claim" that Pittsburgh had the smallest subway, it was a question its pretty clear. there is a question mark in the thread title. the whole point of opening the thread was to find out and discuss.

This has nothing to do with just comparing to other light rail systems, obviously there are many smaller cities with light rail. Subway means subway. Everyone here has intenet access and you can look up the definition, even though its already been posted here.

Smallest city means by population, not land area. That is overwhelmingly the case here, and in pretty much any other discussion not specifically talking about land area. Also, if you read other posts in the thread, you can see that populations are being compared, not land areas. There are 2 relevant populations: strict city limits and MSA metro population. You'll see both discussed in earlier posts in the thread.

If you're feeling too lazy to read through the thread, or don't understand the definition of the term subway, please don't bother to post.

Also if you are posting just to be argumentative, do not bother to post.


To PacoMartin specifically, we're just talking about subways- Sacramento and Cincinnati aren't subways. Sacramento's is an above ground light rail and Cincinnati's is an above ground streetcar line. There are also a bunch of other smaller cities in the US with similar things, but this thread is not about those.

Alos just to repeat, we already determined that in the US, Buffalo and Newark have subways, and Camden has a subway although its directly connected to Philly's system. The smallest city in the world with a subway may be Rennes, France as was noted here earlier.