Could a subway tunnel be realistically turned into a bike path?

September 5, 2009 6:58 AM

With all the recent bike talk on the green and the blue, I have a few questions about the feasibility of repurposing abandoned subway tunnels with underground bike paths.

1) What are some of the drawback to doing this? The ones I could think of are a) you'd have to have a way to get your bike down there; b) extensive lighting would have to be installed; and c) drainage would have to be improved-trains can run in a few inches of water, bikes cannot. Are there any others that I'm missing? Also, am I way off line by the ones I've just mentioned?

2) Are there any cities that have a logical infrastructure for this? By that, I mean have a string of abandoned tunnels that would actually make sense to bike from point A to point B

When I first thought of the idea, it seemed AWESOME since it a)would contain no cars, b) would be all weather, c) would have exits that are both a smart distance from each other and places I'd like to go. Now I'm just wondering about the real world implications of this.

posted by dinty_moore to travel & transportation (14 comments total)

One big drawback you're missing is that this is the platonic ideal of a darkened alley, where muggers/rapists/etc would be. Dark area (even with extensive lighting, there would be spots where the lights were out & such), probably not all that trafficked late at night, a bunch of side tunnels (I assume), and no cell phone service.

One other thing that'd have to be done was some form of paving. Bikes couldn't ride the rails.

It's quite an expensive, and extensive project. I'm not sure it's worth the cost, compared to improving current lanes, especially since a biker would still have to be on those above-ground lanes at the start/end of their journey.
posted by Lemurrhea at 7:19 AM on September 5

The main nonhuman concerns would be lighting and drainage - slick surfaces can be kind of dangerous on two wheels.

There are also human concerns.

This would be a very convenient place to camp out, get drunk, defecate/urinate, shoot up, etc. We have a homelessness problem in the US, and that means that any public space that is private enough will be turned into an illicit living space, where the people living there have little to no incentive to keep it sanitary or hospitable, since they will just be pushed along to another location by the cops in a day or two anyway.

Another concern is that cyclists are popular (easy) targets for people looking to randomly harass someone, meaning that spaces that are confined with no visibility from nearby areas can be a little bit dangerous.
posted by idiopath at 7:27 AM on September 5

.. apart from the muggers, rapists, rats, stench of death and urine, and ever-present fear of being murdered?

Getting down there you've mentioned. My main experience of underground railways are on the London Underground, and large sections of the tunnels are deep underground. This would only be feasible on shallower disused track. Even then you're going to have a long ramp in, and if the route is successful I'd be worried about the possibilities for a pile up (for worst case, see the Bethnal Green Disaster).

Also ventilation. A lot of the heat in the London Underground is caused by the trains, but even so it can be nearly unbearable to be down there in hot weather; I can't imagine trying to do something energetic like cycling in that stuffy airless heat.
posted by Coobeastie at 7:42 AM on September 5

The idea is useless because the tunnel dictates where you are going. You can't get out at regular convenient locations. It removes all the freedom of cycling and means I can't actually get to where I want to be overground quickly and easily. If I had a choice between riding my bike on a road or going down into a subway tunnel I'd choose the road every single time, I can't see a single advantage to cycling around subway tunnels.
posted by fire&wings at 8:09 AM on September 5 [2 favorites]

Not to be glib, but the phrase "rape tunnel" was the first thing that sprung to mind.

Philadelphia is a pretty good cycling city, and there's a quite nice multi-use path running along the Schuylkill River from Center City (i.e. downtown) north through Fairmount Park and beyond to Valley Forge. The downtown section is pretty and well-traveled during the day, particularly on nice weekends (really, so well-traveled that I'd rather ride on the road than deal with the pedestrians). But at night? Scary as hell, even though it's pretty well lit. Lots of homeless people, people doing sketchy things, and dark corners that the lights don't cover. A cycling tunnel would be that all the time.
posted by The Michael The at 8:22 AM on September 5

Minneapolis has a 5-mile below-grade bike path running through the middle of the city. You can only get off it on ramps spaced about every 1/2 mile, and the whole thing is invisible from street level. At night and out of biking season, the path is known for lots of muggings. During the day in bike season, it gets enough traffic (500/hr) to be perfectly safe.

Possibly more important is that a subway tunnel wouldn't have frequent enough exits for cyclists to actually get where they're going. Maybe it could be a novelty trail just for bike races and sightseers?
posted by miyabo at 8:36 AM on September 5

Are there many places with extensive unused tunnels? About the only candidate I can think of might be Cincinnati.
posted by rikschell at 9:08 AM on September 5

an abandoned tunnel system like that makes me think of "Dark Days", previously on the blue
posted by rmd1023 at 10:19 AM on September 5 [1 favorite]

I googled Minneapolis Bike Tunnel to find a picture, and ended up reading about the San Sebastian bike tunnel which is very similar to what you're asking about. Good photos there, including one of the 29 security cameras set up to monitor the traffic. Looks like a fairly expensive proposition, that's only realistic in a very bike-friendly city.
posted by Gortuk at 10:50 AM on September 5

The main problem is that there are only about five hundred meters of abandoned subway tunnel in the entire world.
posted by gum at 4:45 PM on September 5

I think the Minneapolis bike trail referenced is the Midtown Greenway, which is under sea level but above ground. I take it all the time, but again-not at night.

The issues with homeless/violent crimes is an issue-possibly solved by enforcing strict hours in some way that wouldn't involve someone accidentally being locked in, or charging a small fee (50 cents-ish) for use-which would piss people off and discourage use. Though I might be willing to pay 50 cents if it meant I wouldn't have to worry about people screaming and throwing stuff at me for using an above-ground bike lane. . .

The real issue, I think, is that tunnels aren't exactly abandoned in a convenient way for this project. Ah well.

Anyway, thanks for indulging my curiosity, everybody!
posted by dinty_moore at 7:30 PM on September 5

The Old Elbe Tunnel in Hamburg, is a tunnel which runs from one side of a river to the other. You take an elevator down (freight elevator if you're in a car), then you can cycle or walk or dive the length of the tunnel. There's some video and pictures here.
posted by beerbajay at 8:09 AM on September 6

The issues with homeless/violent crimes is an issue-possibly solved by enforcing strict hours in some way that wouldn't involve someone accidentally being locked in, or charging a small fee (50 cents-ish) for use-which would piss people off and discourage use.

The time of day/safety correlation arises above ground because of darkness being limited to certain hours. People who want to commit violent crimes probably won't be deterred by the fee, and that's pretty cheap for a place to sleep too.

I have seen some above ground bike paths with narrow tunnels under roadways. Very short tunnels, only wide enough for one bike.
posted by yohko at 2:44 PM on September 6

The time of day/safety correlation arises above ground because of darkness being limited to certain hours. People who want to commit violent crimes probably won't be deterred by the fee, and that's pretty cheap for a place to sleep too.

I can't pull out any data to support this that the time of day/safety correlation has a lot more to do with the number of people being out than the amount of light. The only example I can think of is the one that has already been mentioned-the number of muggings on the Minneapolis Greenway goes up during off season-and while it's darker in winter, it's not that much darker.

The thing is, there are plenty of public enclosed spaces used for transportation in the world-underground pedways and skyways are probably the best analogies. Most of the examples I can think of for both impose hours to deter homeless setting up camp.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:54 PM on September 6