In 1900, the Erie Canal was re-routed to bypass downtown Rochester, and in 1919 the abandoned canal was bought to serve as the core of the subway. The subway was built below, and the subway’s roof was turned into Broad Street. Only two miles of the Rochester Subway were actually located in the tunnel. The rest of the route was located in an open cut. The term “subway” did not refer to the tunnel, but to the fact that the route was grade-separated and operated as rapid transit. Connecting interurban lines were routed into the subway connection, and off city streets, further easing the surface traffic congestion that was developing in Rochester.

When the Utica streetcar system was abandoned in the late 1930s, New York State Railways transferred the relatively new steel cars to Rochester to replace the 2000-series center-door cars that had been in service since the opening of the subway. The Utica cars served until the end of passenger service on June 30, 1956. Car #60 was saved for preservation, and is currently undergoing restoration by the Rochester Chapter, NRHS.

The subway from Court Street to Rowlands was replaced by the Eastern Expressway in 1956. Limited freight service operated by connecting railroads lasted on the subway route from Court Street to General Motors until 1976, when the City of Rochester elected to fill the cut to eliminate the numerous bridges. Rail freight deliveries in the actual subway tunnel continued until 1996, when Gannett Newspapers moved their printing operations to another location.

Today the subway sits abandoned. There is much controversy over what should be done with it. Rochester officials want to do something with the old tunnels, because it costs them an estimated $1.2 million in repairs and shoring up every year to maintain them as they are. There were proposals to use some of the old tunnels in a new Rochester rapid transit system, transforming the Broad Street Aqueduct into an underground walkway connecting the Rochester Riverside Convention Center with the Blue Cross Arena, installation of a Rochester Transportation Museum, filling the remaining subway tunnel with water, re-routing the Erie Canal and restoring the aqueduct to its original purpose. But the proposal Rochester city officials decided on, in 2004, was to fill the remaining subway tunnel with dirt. This decision caused public outcry in Rochester, where residents regard the subway as part of their history. In July 2008, the city voted to fill in a portion of the Subway tunnel citing safety concerns. The remainder of the tunnel is still open and a magnet for photographers and grafitti artists.

(This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Rochester Subway”)