The first nine stories are parking, with the main lobby and monorail platform on ten. From there, escalators lead to a dozen floors of casinos, bars and dance stages, culminating in a five story auditorium for the aerial stripper ballet. The top floors are offices for money-laundering, and Scarface's private penthouse
Unbuilt Urban Projects That You Wish Had Been Built
- Thread starter kernals12
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The first nine stories are parking, with the main lobby and monorail platform on ten. From there, escalators lead to a dozen floors of casinos, bars and dance stages, culminating in a five story auditorium for the aerial stripper ballet. The top floors are offices for money-laundering, and Scarface's private penthouse
So you wouldn't go there on a frequent basis, if such a place were built?
For God's sake, man, my wife is reading over my sho...never mind, she's gone...
Lost the game
Banned
On the reddit forum r/Philadelphia, a user named u/fiftythreestudio posted this map of what the original plan wasto turn SEPTA's Regional Rail lines into mass transit within Philadelphia, while retaining the commuter rail outside the city. The idea would have required an additional connection so that both of the Chestnut Hill lines (the R3 and R7 here) would connect to the main transit spine through the city, and would have had SEPTA lay off the conductors and instead collect fares at turnstiles like a normal mass transit system.
Ultimately, the conductors went on a three-month strike, killing the idea. Regional Rail remains a criminally underutilized asset within Philadelphia, and SEPTA has struggled for years (though its luck may have turned, as its board will soon be made up of a majority of Democratic appointees for the first time in its history, thanks to Democratic takeovers in Delaware, Chester, and Bucks counties)
Edit: Here's more of his work
Ultimately, the conductors went on a three-month strike, killing the idea. Regional Rail remains a criminally underutilized asset within Philadelphia, and SEPTA has struggled for years (though its luck may have turned, as its board will soon be made up of a majority of Democratic appointees for the first time in its history, thanks to Democratic takeovers in Delaware, Chester, and Bucks counties)
Edit: Here's more of his work
kernals12
Banned
It would be neat if there was some way for Philly to remain a relevant city. As it is, they've just become boring and forgotten.On the reddit forum r/Philadelphia, a user named u/fiftythreestudio posted this map of what the original plan wasto turn SEPTA's Regional Rail lines into mass transit within Philadelphia, while retaining the commuter rail outside the city. The idea would have required an additional connection so that both of the Chestnut Hill lines (the R3 and R7 here) would connect to the main transit spine through the city, and would have had SEPTA lay off the conductors and instead collect fares at turnstiles like a normal mass transit system.
Ultimately, the conductors went on a three-month strike, killing the idea. Regional Rail remains a criminally underutilized asset within Philadelphia, and SEPTA has struggled for years (though its luck may have turned, as its board will soon be made up of a majority of Democratic appointees for the first time in its history, thanks to Democratic takeovers in Delaware, Chester, and Bucks counties)
Buildings
New York City
Gustav Lindenthal 23rd street bridge, 1921. Would be have a train/subway station in both ends and a residential-commerce mix building too.
Victory Bridge Hudson River crossing 1919
Mark Foster Gage proposed a 102-storey tower in a "Dieselpunk/Gothic/Solarpunk" style, to be built in West 57th Street. I particulary like of this.
Gate of Peace, 1863. Richard Morris Hunt came up with this entryway to merge with the style and scale of the buildings cropping up around Central Park
Sunnyside Yards Terminal New-York.
New York Future Tower City, 1927
Chrystie Forsyth Parkway
Rockefeller Center, 1932
Metropolitan Life Tower as originally planned.
Apartment Bridge design by Raymond Hood.
Inside view of Raymond Hood Apartment City.
None of these pictures are working for me.
Lost the game
Banned
Has anyone ever told you that you're insufferably arrogant and dismissive of other people?
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
Personally I wish Philly had kept at least some of its trolley system outside of the subway-surface lines and the 15 on Girard. The 56 and the 60 make far more sense as trolleys with dedicated right-of-way than as busses that have to share the road. Maybe light rail or heavy rail using the City Branch, connecting Fairmount and Strawberry Mansion to Center City via transit.
Of course, there's always this proposed subway/elevated proposal from 1913
Here it is as a modern-style transit map:
The yellow line could be built relatively affordably by repurposing the Broad/Ridge spur, building track up the City Branch cut to serve Fairmount and Brewerytown, and tunneling under Vine from 10th-11th to Broad to link them. That would only bring heavy rail as far as Girard. A phase II of the plan would be to extend the subway as far as East Falls, then you have an interchange with the R6 at 35th and Allegheny.
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For me, it will always and forever be the Belgrade Metro. The idea of a subway has been discussed since at least the 1920s, and consequently there have been many proposals for one, though the first comprehensive plans only manifested from the 1960s and onward (beginning with a 1968 study led by dr. Savo Janjić [released as Studija metroa u Beogradu]).
Janjić's study ended up envisioning the following lines:
Later, in the 70s, after the building of a new railway junction, new plans ended up being developed, with the formation of the Sector for Metro and Underground Works within the city administration's "institute for the building and reconstructing of the city of Belgrade", the sector being led by the city's chief urban planner at the time, Branislav Jovin. This would be the most comprehensive plan of the lot (released as Direkcija za izgradnju i rekonsktrukciju Beograda), including a number of variations based on various factors (one of which is available on the Wikipedia page, alongside a variation proposed by the General Urban Plan), though the variation below was their favored one.
Following the study, further iterations were made, and by 1982, the project "Metro Beograd" was proposed to the city administration. Unfortunately, one of the ideas said project had was having the Soviet Union possibly build the metro, with the reason why they would do so being that it would rid them of their debt to Yugoslavia, but because of that, at least according to one source, in fear of objections from Slovenia and Croatia, they ended up abandoning the proposal. Following this, the city administration imposed a compulsory, self-imposed tax on up to 2% of the salaries of all employed in the city, for the purposes of further developing city traffic, among other things.
While this led to the fund becoming quite large, abruptly, the idea was declared too expensive, and the chief city executive Radoje Stefanović suspended the original subway construction plan from 1976 in favor of the expansion of the existing Belgrade tram system network in 1982, with the "With trams into the 21st century" project). Considering how economically things worsened following Tito's death, and how existing tramworkers and railway workers opposed and lobbied against the metro, suggesting their alternative was cheaper, it makes sense why things ended this way.
Following that, discussion would come and go over the years, with the first serious plan after manifesting in 2004, with the BELIM project (Belgrade Light Metro, or BELAM/Beogradski laki metro). I'd link the full design below, but unfortunately, the only complete design includes only one of the three proposed lines.
Proposed as a means of relieving Belgrade's growing traffic congestion issues, a feasibility study estimated construction would be unfeasible for multiple reasons, and soon enough, by 2009, the project was scrapped. Though that happened, thoughts once more returned to having a full metro rather than a light one.
As much as it frustrates me that we didn't get any of the earlier proposals, rest assured, they are apparently doing something at least now, cooperating with two French companies and a Chinese company to begin construction of a metro line starting in late 2020... and from what I can tell, it is going to look like this.
That was the largest quality I could find, though you can just read the station names via the Wikipedia article.
Janjić's study ended up envisioning the following lines:
Later, in the 70s, after the building of a new railway junction, new plans ended up being developed, with the formation of the Sector for Metro and Underground Works within the city administration's "institute for the building and reconstructing of the city of Belgrade", the sector being led by the city's chief urban planner at the time, Branislav Jovin. This would be the most comprehensive plan of the lot (released as Direkcija za izgradnju i rekonsktrukciju Beograda), including a number of variations based on various factors (one of which is available on the Wikipedia page, alongside a variation proposed by the General Urban Plan), though the variation below was their favored one.
Following the study, further iterations were made, and by 1982, the project "Metro Beograd" was proposed to the city administration. Unfortunately, one of the ideas said project had was having the Soviet Union possibly build the metro, with the reason why they would do so being that it would rid them of their debt to Yugoslavia, but because of that, at least according to one source, in fear of objections from Slovenia and Croatia, they ended up abandoning the proposal. Following this, the city administration imposed a compulsory, self-imposed tax on up to 2% of the salaries of all employed in the city, for the purposes of further developing city traffic, among other things.
While this led to the fund becoming quite large, abruptly, the idea was declared too expensive, and the chief city executive Radoje Stefanović suspended the original subway construction plan from 1976 in favor of the expansion of the existing Belgrade tram system network in 1982, with the "With trams into the 21st century" project). Considering how economically things worsened following Tito's death, and how existing tramworkers and railway workers opposed and lobbied against the metro, suggesting their alternative was cheaper, it makes sense why things ended this way.
Following that, discussion would come and go over the years, with the first serious plan after manifesting in 2004, with the BELIM project (Belgrade Light Metro, or BELAM/Beogradski laki metro). I'd link the full design below, but unfortunately, the only complete design includes only one of the three proposed lines.
Proposed as a means of relieving Belgrade's growing traffic congestion issues, a feasibility study estimated construction would be unfeasible for multiple reasons, and soon enough, by 2009, the project was scrapped. Though that happened, thoughts once more returned to having a full metro rather than a light one.
As much as it frustrates me that we didn't get any of the earlier proposals, rest assured, they are apparently doing something at least now, cooperating with two French companies and a Chinese company to begin construction of a metro line starting in late 2020... and from what I can tell, it is going to look like this.
That was the largest quality I could find, though you can just read the station names via the Wikipedia article.
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I'm pretty sure that highway system was dead without the help of the Metro system. This looks like the proposal from the 50s that included making the C&O canal a freeway instead of a National Park.
This highway plan for Washington DC which was cancelled in favor of the absolutely awful Metro.
Around the early 20th century they had originally planned on building a canal / river between Houston and Dallas. They ended up building a bridge instead but I think it would’ve caused a huge number of butterflies.
Vaporized
Banned
When Walt Disney was creating Disney World, he had some big ambitions. EPCOT was to be an actual city where people would live, work, and shop. And it would be a city like no other on earth.
The most incredible thing about the city is its entire downtown would be indoors. Given the weather they have in Florida, that would've been a big selling point. In the center was to be a high rise hotel/convention center. There would shops that were to be styled like different places around the world (sound familiar?) and out side would be apartment buildings.
The 2nd most impressive thing was transportation. No automobiles would be allowed inside the enclosed city, they would be relegated to a ginormous underground parking lot. For getting around, there would be People Movers, which would be implemented as the WEDway system at Disneyland until it was torn down in 1995.
And Disney really was keen on reducing car usage. The people mover system would've extended into EPCOT's suburbs.
Disney's board was not very enthusiastic about this project, seeing it as too risky. When Walt died in 1966, the project lost its most vocal supporter and it was cancelled.
Disney did sort of go into the property development business with the town of Celebration, Florida, although it wasn't nearly as futuristic.
As you look at the glossy renderings, it's hard not to think how awesome it would've been.
If it had been a success, it probably would've been a huge influence for urban planning elsewhere. We might see lots of cities that had vast indoor areas that would've been cities within cities.
The city never would've happened anyway. After the first phase of Disney World opened the massive real estate boom that turned rural central Florida into a metropolitan area based on tourism and entertainment would've nullified any goals for EPCOT. People can choose where they want to live and not have the demanding control of a corporation. Orlando International eliminates need for the jetport of EPCOT. No one is moving factories to central Florida even for Disney. It would've always been a similar concept that happened OTL. Maybe not a theme park, but related.
What bridge? from Houston to Dallas? I don't think so. More information and maybe some pictures or a map plese.
The project was in response to a big storm in Dallas around (iirc) 1909. They had two options:
- Build bridge across the Trinity “River” (OTL)
- Use locks to create a canal between Houston and Dallas
The bridge is between South Dallas and Oak Cliff. The canal was to stretch across Texas.