Train to Nowhere - How Cincinnati tried, and failed, to build one of America’s first subways Like many Midwestern cities, Cincinnati's public transit system has seen better times. On an average day, only 55,000 trips in Cincinnati are made on public buses — the city’s only mode of public transportation — in a metropolitan region of over 2 million people. The city ranks 46th among the 50 most populous cities in terms of ridership. And public transit use continues to fall: recently, the city has considered downsizing to smaller buses on some of its routes. But under the streets of Cincinnati lies the vestige of a different vision — sealed underneath heavy manholes, hidden behind ivy-draped steel gates, and kept out of the public eye by the city’s highest officials. This is the city’s abandoned subway system, nearly three miles of empty tunnels and platforms now decorated in dust and graffiti. It is a vast subterranean space that stands as a monument to one of the biggest transportation blunders of all time. Had it been completed, the rapid transit system could have transformed Cincinnati. Instead, a decade after the project broke ground it was canceled, never to be completed. It is the nation’s largest ghost subway. Built in 1933, Cincinnati's Union Terminal train station is a beautiful, imposing art deco relic that, for the last 20 years, has been left to crumble. At its peak in the 1940s, the station handled up to 216 trains a day. Today it’s home to a dilapidated IMAX theater (currently closed for repairs), and the Cincinnati Museum Center (also closed). Until recently, the only way to see Cincinnati’s abandoned subway was to take one of the museum’s paid tours. But no longer, thanks to the city’s recent decision to restrict the public’s access out of liability concerns. The subway tunnels have been designated "a confined space," unsafe for the public. Recently a cameraman filming a documentary… http://bit.ly/2b4OrCz
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