DBWI mass transit in New York City

Americans are known for their hostility to transportation systems not involving the internal combustion engine, and one characteristic of American cities is their lack of any rail mass transit, other than Chicago's famous "El" (which works quite well) and the odd surviving street car lines. But there actually were serious proposals to build a mass transit system, modeled on the "El", in New York City and if this had been done it would have spurred other cities to do the same. How would this have changed American cities, particularly New York?
 
(ooc: I hate to bust the bubble, but nyc's geography makes rapid transit practically necessary due to Manhattan being on an island. Look at how famous the traffic problems are already XD. Without the subway someone estimated that over 100 new road tunnels/bridges to keep up with the traffic created otl. NYC outside of Manhattan only really took off after the subway anyway, so NYC would expand much, much differently, and it's reputation for third world levels of traffic would contsrian it's growth to the point that Chicago and LA would over take it as America's most populus cities)

It was said that the primary reason for the finanicial industry moving to Chicago from new york was because "the conditions of living" in the city had become intolerable with the extreme overcrowding. They did eventually link up the Manhattan, brooklyn, Bronx streetcar system but its reputation is awful with it's bad management and ludicrous crowding. People ride on the roof for God's sake! WHY THE HELL ARE THERE ONLY 2 STREETCAR BRIDGES TO MANHATTAN FROM BRONX AND 3 FROM BROOKLYN!

Sorry, as a native new Yorker I just hate our excuse for "rapid transit system". Sure it can get you everywhere from Queens to Jersey City but you'll get there faster in a car in even the slowest of our imfamous jams. Thank God they're finally getting most of the routes grade seperated. It only took what, like 100 years of proof that the Chicago El was doing it right!?

Back to being serious, the reason why Chicago ended up getting one of the world's best systems isn't by accident. It makes me furious to know that builders of the El we're originally planning to do it in my home city but the city turned them down because "it would cost too much to dig that many tunnels to and from manhattan and we would never recoup that cost to this day". CONSIDERING THE STATE OF TRANSIT IN THIS CITY NOW, THAT WAS THE STUPIDEST MOVE IN THE CITY'S HISTORY! SO WHAT IF WE HAVE "THE LARGEST CONTINUOUS TRAM NETWORK IN THE WORLD". ITS SOME SHIT!!

I really envy the famous "20 lines of the El". Maybe if things had gone differently New York would still be America's biggest city and the Yankees would be supreme. BOO WHITE SOCKS!

(Ooc: disgruntled new Yorker complaining about the city's tram network. While it is actually more extensive than otl subway, going all the way from Queens to Jersey City it is grindingly slow in ttl nyc's traffic, and so crowded to the point that people hitch rides on the car roofs)
 
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OOC:

I'll need to bring in some data to this because the discussion is already going off the rails.

Historically, what became the New York Subway system was first planned after the blizzard of 1888 effectively shut the city down. Ironically they have now started to close the subways during blizzards and major storms. Construction started in the 1890s.

The Chicago El predates the New York subway system, though the Loop was only incorporated, with difficulty, in the 1890s. The oldest subway tunnel in the USA is in Boston, but the T is slightly younger than the New York subway, which was originally supposed to be an El on the Chicago model.

This is a minor point, but there were some pre-existing railways to bring holiday goers to Coney Island that got incorporated into the subway system. There were also lots of streetcar lines, later replaced by bus lines, so its not like there would have been no mass transit without the subways.

Anyway, construction on the system started in the 1890s, I think in 1894. Greater New York was incorporated in 1898. Before 1898, "New York City" referred to Manhattan, though the Bronx was added in 1895.

The Census had the population of Manhattan at 1.4 million people in 1890, increasing to 1.8 million in 1900. As of 2010 the population was 1.6 million, for comparison. The New York City population post consolidation was 3.4 million, as opposed to 8.2 million in 2010. So in 1900 1.8 million people lived in Manhattan, another 1.6 million in the outer boroughs. The outer boroughs effectively absorbed the net population growth in the twentieth century.

Here is the point. The subway system is not required for New York to be a major city. New York was already one of the most important cities in the world, and the largest in the United States, before any part of the system had been built. Manhattan actually pretty much reached its present day population level before the subways. And without the subways you would still get mass transit in the form of streetcars and busses. What the subways seem to have facilitated was people living outside of Manhattan and commuting to jobs in two centralized business districts on the islands, along with the PATH system and the LIRR, MetroNorth, and New Jersey Transit commuter rail.
 
OOC: no subway system means completely different traffic pattern and infrastructure, especially as most of the outer boroughs was undeveloped in 1894, and not many cars were around. New York without subways could have developed to be more like Los Angeles. The waterways aren't that much worse barriers than the mountains.
 
OOC: no subway system means completely different traffic pattern and infrastructure, especially as most of the outer boroughs was undeveloped in 1894, and not many cars were around. New York without subways could have developed to be more like Los Angeles. The waterways aren't that much worse barriers than the mountains.

OOC: yea thats basically what I meant. NYC would probably develop more like LA. However, the waterways ARE worse than mountains in this case, because the center of the city has always been lover/midtown manhattan (separated from ALL the other boroughs by water), and practically all transport infrastructure both iotl and ttl would focus on getting people to and from manhattan. Thats why I was talking about bridges/tunnels in my earlier post.
 
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