From Atlanta to Washington, DC, Boston to Vancouver, Los Angeles to Miami, Montreal to Toronto, cartographer and writer Jake Berman explores the failures and successes of North American transport through the combination of deeply researched text and handsomely illustrated maps of past, present, and never-built systems. It should appeal to transportation nerds everywhere.
A personal note: Of the 23 systems described by Berman, I’ve been to nearly a dozen of them. Each one is singular in its own way, with their own flaws and strengths. Some are easy to get around (Boston); some unnecessarily confusing (New York); some known for their deep tunnels (Washington, DC). A few are fun (Los Angeles), efficient (Vancouver), and just plain beautiful (Montreal).
According to Berman, the definition of good mass transit is a system that is “fast, frequent, and reliable, and it should go where people want it to go.” Whether it is called a trolley (Philadelphia), streetcar (New Orleans), elevated, metro, or subway, they all describe the same thing: “an electric railway system that is fully separated from other traffic . . .”
The first underground rapid transit in North America opened in Boston in 1897. One of the newer subways, in Los Angeles, continues to expand albeit in “fits and spurts.” (Today’s generation of Angelenos seem to want more transit, not less.) It’s no surprise that New York is the busiest metro system in North America then followed by Montreal. Toronto may have opened Canada’s first metro, in 1954, but Montreal’s Metro, writes Berman, “is one of the great success stories in North American mass transit.” Built as a showcase for the city’s Expo ’67 world’s fair, it remains popular among residents and visitors alike. (One of the secrets to its success is quietness—it runs on concrete tracks using rubber tires rather than steel wheels and steel tracks.) Another relative newcomer, Vancouver’s SkyTrain, which opened in 1985 and runs mostly above ground, is just as popular. Berman calls SkyTrain “practically a unicorn among North American metro systems, because it’s an elevated that nearly everybody likes.”
As Berman notes, much of the problem getting transit systems off the ground is a combination of slow-moving bureaucracy, red tape, and corruption, and it is often divided by race, dysfunctional politics, chronic underfunding, and the dominance of the automobile. Subsequently, projects are put on hold, cut down in size, or unfinished (most famously, New York’s Second Avenue Subway).
The chapter on Chicago’s transit system combines elements of all the above. Berman asserts that the story of Chicago’s transit woes essentially is the story of the 1.8-mile, two track elevated called the Loop.
Berman discusses Chicago’s convoluted transit history. During the early days, the system consisted of disconnected lines—one totally distinct from each other, which made it confusing, not to say difficult, for commuters who had to walk “or take a streetcar from one terminal to the other to transfer.” Private versus public ownership of the streetcar and elevated lines led to the so-called traction problem.
The Loop elevated lines were built in the 1890s, with a combination of what Berman calls “sharp elbows and shameless corruption.” Hardly known for its aesthetic beauty, the “L” has had a rough history as various interests from real estate developers to politicians have tried to tear down the antiquated old steel structure and replace it with underground subways.
People have always had mixed feelings about the “L”: to some it’s an eyesore; to others it is an essential part of Chicago transportation history. Talk of demolishing it was nothing new. But razing it to the ground was easier said than done. It would have cost a ton of money—more than the authorities were willing to spend. So instead of tearing it down city leaders chose to improve it.
Enter the Gilded Age railroad baron, Charles Yerkes. Using bribery and blackmail, he was able to hold a virtual monopoly over the downtown transit lines as he bought the failing companies. But eventually his unscrupulous ways caught up with him and the backlash began. He left Chicago for London. In 1907, the traction problem was resolved once and for all when the streetcar operators agreed to give the city the option to buy the transit lines. Finally, in 1947, a single public agency—the Chicago Transit Authority—was created.
But problems remained, Berman says. One of the bigger issues was that every single elevated train ran through the Loop, acting as a “choke point,” which led to delays, congestion, and “commuter meltdowns.”
Berman discusses other issues that confronted the CTA over the years, including modernization efforts, the failed attempt to build the Crosstown Expressway, and Richard M. Daley’s equally quixotic support to construct a light rail system downtown, called the Circulator.
Meanwhile, the noisy elevated trains that circle the Loop are still here. CTA brass has continued to invest in it, Berman notes, closing some and opening others. Moreover, the “L” has become a symbol of the city’s cultural identity “as much as the cable cars of San Francisco or the streetcars of New Orleans.”
Despite the challenges, Berman remains cautiously optimistic about the future of urban transit. Changes in land use policies as well as the evolving attitudes of residents who are demanding a return to traditional, walkable cities is another reason for his optimism.
And so, Berman concludes with a statement that the Dude himself would surely appreciate: “the Loop abides.”
The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been is available in bookstores and through the University of Chicago Press' website.