The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its opening, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and a deck 127 ft (38.7 m) above mean high water. The span was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge or the East River Bridge but was officially renamed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1915.
The George Washington Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River, connecting Fort Lee in Bergen County, New Jersey, with Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is named after Founding Father George Washington, the first president of the United States. The George Washington Bridge is the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge, carrying a traffic volume of over 104 million vehicles in 2019, and is the world's only suspension bridge with 14 vehicular lanes. It is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state government agency that operates infrastructure in the Port of New York and New Jersey. The George Washington Bridge is also informally known as the GW Bridge, the GWB, the GW, or the George, and was known as the Fort Lee Bridge or Hudson River Bridge during construction. The George Washington Bridge measures 4,760 feet (1,450 m) long and has a main span of 3,500 feet (1,100 m). It was the longest main bridge span in the world from its 1931 opening until the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opened in 1937.
A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide valley, road, river, or other low-lying terrain features and obstacles. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via meaning "road", and ducere meaning "to lead". It is a 19th-century derivation from an analogy with ancient Roman aqueducts. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early viaducts comprised a series of arches of roughly equal length.
The Arroyo Seco Parkway, also known as the Pasadena Freeway, is one of the oldest freeways built in the United States. It connects Los Angeles with Pasadena alongside the Arroyo Seco seasonal river. It is notable not only for being an early freeway, mostly opened in 1940, but for representing the transitional phase between early parkways and modern freeways. It conformed to modern standards when it was built, but is now regarded as a narrow, outdated roadway. A 1953 extension brought the south end to the Four Level Interchange in downtown Los Angeles and a connection with the rest of the freeway system.
The Blue Line is a 26.93-mile-long (43.34 km) Chicago "L" line which extends through The Loop from O'Hare International Airport at the far northwest end of the city, through downtown via the Milwaukee–Dearborn subway and across the West Side to its southwest end at Forest Park, with a total of 33 stations. At about 27 miles, it is the longest line on the Chicago "L" system and second busiest, and one of the longest local subway/elevated lines in the world. It has an average of 64,978 passengers boarding each weekday in 2022.
The Chicago Tunnel Company was the builder and operator of a 2 ft narrow-gauge railway freight tunnel network under downtown Chicago, Illinois. This was regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission as an interurban even though it operated entirely under central Chicago, did not carry passengers, and was entirely underground. It inspired the construction of the London Post Office Railway.
Interstate 290 (I-290) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that runs westward from the Jane Byrne Interchange near the Chicago Loop. The portion of I-290 from I-294 to its east end is officially called the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway. In short form, it is known as "the Ike" or the Eisenhower. Before being designated the Eisenhower Expressway, the highway was called the Congress Expressway because of the surface street that was located approximately in its path and onto which I-290 runs at its eastern terminus in the Loop.
The Rochester Industrial and Rapid Transit Railway, more commonly known as the Rochester subway, was a light rail rapid transit line in the city of Rochester, New York, from 1927 to 1956. The subway was constructed in the bed of the old Erie Canal, which allowed the route to be grade-separated for its entire length. Two miles (3.2 km) of the route through downtown were constructed in a cut-and-cover tunnel that became Broad Street, and the only underground portion of the subway. The Rochester Subway was designed to reduce interurban traffic on city streets, and to facilitate freight interchange between the railroads. The line was operated on a contract basis by New York State Railways until Rochester Transit Corporation (RTC) took over in 1938. The last day of passenger service was June 30, 1956. Portions of the right-of-way were used for expressway construction, while the rest was abandoned and filled in over the years. The largest remaining section is a stretch of tunnel under Broad Street from Exchange Street to the intersection of Court Street and South Avenue.
Wacker Drive is a major multilevel street in Chicago, Illinois, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River in the Loop. The vast majority of the street is double-decked; the upper level intended for local traffic, and the lower level for through-traffic and trucks serving buildings on the road. It is sometimes cited as a precursor to the modern freeway, though when it was built the idea was that pleasure vehicles would use the upper level. It is the only street in the city that is prefixed with all four cardinal directions, albeit on different parts of its route. The drive is named for early 20th century Chicago businessman and city planner Charles H. Wacker.
Randolph Street is a street in Chicago. It runs east–west through the Chicago Loop, carrying westbound traffic west from Michigan Avenue across the Chicago River on the Randolph Street Bridge, interchanging with the Kennedy Expressway (I-90/I-94), and continuing west. It serves as the northern boundary of Grant Park and the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. Several large theaters, as well as city and state government buildings are on and adjacent to Randolph. Metra's Millennium Station is located under Randolph Street.
The Park Avenue Tunnel, also called the Murray Hill Tunnel, is a 1,600-foot-long (488 m) tunnel that passes under seven blocks of Park Avenue in Murray Hill, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Traffic used to travel northbound from 33rd Street toward the Park Avenue Viaduct. The tunnel is under the jurisdiction of the New York City Department of Transportation. It is designed to carry one lane of northbound car traffic from East 33rd Street to East 40th Street. From 40th Street north, traffic must follow the Park Avenue Viaduct around Grand Central Terminal to 46th Street. The vertical clearance is 8 ft 11 in (2.72 m).
LaSalle Street is a major north-south street in Chicago named for Robert de La Salle, a 17th century French explorer of the Illinois Country. The portion that runs through the Chicago Loop is considered to be Chicago's financial district.
The Washington Street Tunnel was the first traffic tunnel under the Chicago River. J.L. Lake was awarded the contract to construct the tunnel in July 1867 and its construction was completed January 1, 1869. This tunnel was 1605 feet long, from Franklin Street west to Clinton Street, and cost $517,000.
Between 1892 and 1906, Chicago had three cable car tunnels under the Chicago River. Two were built for pedestrian and horse traffic and later converted, the third was built specially for cable-cars. After cable service ended they would be used by electric streetcars.
A subway, also known as an underpass, is a grade-separated pedestrian crossing which crosses underneath a road or railway in order to entirely separate pedestrians and cyclists from motor traffic or trains respectively.
The 178th and 179th Street Tunnels are two disused vehicular tunnels in Upper Manhattan in New York City. Originally conceived and constructed under the auspices of Robert Moses, the twin tunnels have been superseded by the Trans-Manhattan Expressway in Washington Heights, which itself runs through a cut with high-rise apartments built over it in places.
Ida B. Wells Drive is a major east–west street in downtown Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It runs east from the Jane Byrne Interchange, where it meets Interstate 90 (I-90), I-94 and I-290. At Wells Street, Ida B. Wells Drive continues as a surface street past State Street and Michigan Avenue, until ending at Columbus Drive in Grant Park in front of the Buckingham Fountain. In 2018, the editorial board of The New York Times praised the Chicago City Council's renaming of the street to honor the journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells.
The Lincoln Tunnel Expressway is an eight block-long, mostly four-lane, north–south arterial road between the portals of the Lincoln Tunnel and West 30th Street in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Dyer Avenue is an at-grade roadway paralleling part of the mostly depressed roadway and serves traffic entering and leaving the expressway and the tubes of the tunnel. Like the tunnel, the roads are owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. They traverse the Manhattan neighborhoods of Hell's Kitchen and Chelsea between Ninth and Tenth avenues. The highway serves as the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel from Manhattan, with the entrance from Weehawken, New Jersey being the Lincoln Tunnel Helix.
The LaSalle Street Cable Car Powerhouse at 500 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois is a rare surviving artifact of Chicago's cable car system, which at its peak in the 1890s was one of the largest in the country, in terms of riders and equipment. Three separate companies operated thousands of cable cars over 82 miles of track. The three story powerhouse was built by the North Chicago Street Railroad Company in 1886-1887 for $35,000. "It was a striking presence in the River North area, which was a jumble of low-scale factories, warehouses and shipyards," said a Commission on Chicago Landmarks Designation Report from 2000. The railroad company was organized by Charles Tyson Yerkes, the leading transit entrepreneur in Chicago during the late 19th century. At the height of his influence, Yerkes controlled eight separate street railway companies and 250 miles of track in the city.
In 1900, Chicago already had the second largest cable car network in the United States and would eventually surpass New York City to have the largest streetcar network in the world in a few decades. In 1900, there were three private companies operating 41 miles (66.0 km) of double track routes radiating out from Chicago's downtown area. State of the art technology when the first line opened in 1882, by 1900 electric traction had proven superior and in 1906 all cable routes were changed to electrical power. Decades later, most were part of Chicago Transit Authority bus routes.
