The Bright Building (749 King St W) | 18 + 3 fl | U/C

[ac3r]

Ignore them, IronDev, they are just being naughty!

What are you talking about? Today there was a livestream on both Zoom and YouTube all about it. Most interesting is the proposal to expand it to the townships, but I expect the NIMBYs to be vehemently against it, even though it won't go into their backyards but rather run about 425 meters underneath them. It would allow us to take extremely cheap flights across Canada, but apparently Fred Nougat in Breslau doesn't think it would be a good idea...kept talking about his plans to build a very deep well one day, so he could teach his children the values of what it means to be from a "small town". I kept trying to object, saying no this is a great idea - much better than the proposal from the guy on Reddit that conceived a gondola cable car system for travelers (that would run over the top of the ski hill to drop skiers off), but they argued that at least birds could make nests in the towers needed for that! Absolutely absurd. Sure, that might be good for birds, but I know for a fact the homeless people will end up hanging off those too when they're high on methamphetamine.

[jeffster]

It's part of the new K-W PATH system that will run throughout downtown and uptown. It's going to be a bit like the Elon Musk Boring Tunnel project, except ours is going to use these little pods that can hold up to 2 people (or 1 extremely overweight one). It will use new pneumatic technology that UW and Google have been working on that will propel people at about 85 feet per second and will connect people to most new major developments.

First rule of the underground path system. 1) Don't talk about the underground path system.

[Bjays93]

It's part of the new K-W PATH system that will run throughout downtown and uptown. It's going to be a bit like the Elon Musk Boring Tunnel project, except ours is going to use these little pods that can hold up to 2 people (or 1 extremely overweight one). It will use new pneumatic technology that UW and Google have been working on that will propel people at about 85 feet per second and will connect people to most new major developments.

First rule of the underground path system. 1) Don't talk about the underground path system.

Shhhh!

[Acitta]

It's part of the new K-W PATH system that will run throughout downtown and uptown. It's going to be a bit like the Elon Musk Boring Tunnel project, except ours is going to use these little pods that can hold up to 2 people (or 1 extremely overweight one). It will use new pneumatic technology that UW and Google have been working on that will propel people at about 85 feet per second and will connect people to most new major developments.

Now you have done it! We are going to have to endure endless complaints from Cambridge about why they were left out and how they are always treated as a second class part of the Region.

[KevinL]

After the big pour on the weekend:

[dtkvictim]

Ignore them, IronDev, they are just being naughty!

More seriously though, there are indeed (private) tunnels underneath downtown, but the ones I'm aware of and am lucky enough to have access to are in the very central area. I'm told a number of the connections exist from the prohibition era, and were used for running alcohol. The very narrow and informal nature of some parts would have me believe that too. There is some really fascinating stuff down there that I think this forum would love, but I'm not sure if the property owners would be open to documenting any of it or not.

[taylortbb]

More seriously though, there are indeed (private) tunnels underneath downtown, but the ones I'm aware of and am lucky enough to have access to are in the very central area. I'm told a number of the connections exist from the prohibition era, and were used for running alcohol. The very narrow and informal nature of some parts would have me believe that too. There is some really fascinating stuff down there that I think this forum would love, but I'm not sure if the property owners would be open to documenting any of it or not.

You can't just say that without more details. I'm not surprised that some adjacent buildings might be connected, but any sort of tunnel is news to me. Given how King/Duke/Charles have all undergone heavy underground reconstruction in the past decade I feel like anything that existed would likely have been filled in.

Then again, Chicago managed to get flooded by a forgotten series of tunnels, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_flood . Apparently many buildings that flooded didn't even know they were connected to the tunnels, as the accessed had been drywalled over long ago. So who knows what's down there.

[jeffster]

More seriously though, there are indeed (private) tunnels underneath downtown, but the ones I'm aware of and am lucky enough to have access to are in the very central area. I'm told a number of the connections exist from the prohibition era, and were used for running alcohol. The very narrow and informal nature of some parts would have me believe that too. There is some really fascinating stuff down there that I think this forum would love, but I'm not sure if the property owners would be open to documenting any of it or not.

You can't just say that without more details. I'm not surprised that some adjacent buildings might be connected, but any sort of tunnel is news to me. Given how King/Duke/Charles have all undergone heavy underground reconstruction in the past decade I feel like anything that existed would likely have been filled in.

Then again, Chicago managed to get flooded by a forgotten series of tunnels, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_flood . Apparently many buildings that flooded didn't even know they were connected to the tunnels, as the accessed had been drywalled over long ago. So who knows what's down there.

Some of the existing tunnels are between are the block around King, Water, Duke and Ontario. There are tunnels in the Rockway area as well. As DTKVictim said, there were used for running alcohol.

[robdrimmie]

I tried digging up a bit of information about the tunnels, but hints of tunnels in Waterloo are easier to find:

Tunnels in and around the Huether

A Waterloo pothole reveals underground tunnels

[ijmorlan]

I tried digging up a bit of information about the tunnels, but hints of tunnels in Waterloo are easier to find:

Tunnels in and around the Huether

A Waterloo pothole reveals underground tunnels

Just in case anybody is unclear, the second article is a joke.

I have a vague memory of a tunnel across King St., south of Erb, being found when the road was rebuilt.

I think these were usually mostly for moving goods rather than people and were rather small. That’s my impression anyway. Part (not even close to all) of the reason things are more expensive now is that we have higher expectations.

[ijmorlan]

Then again, Chicago managed to get flooded by a forgotten series of tunnels, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_flood . Apparently many buildings that flooded didn't even know they were connected to the tunnels, as the accessed had been drywalled over long ago. So who knows what's down there.

The tunnel network itself wasn’t forgotten, just the existence of some of its connections to buildings.

I believe one of the tunnels was used to film the tunnel scene in the the Blues Brothers movie.

[robdrimmie]

Just in case anybody is unclear, the second article is a joke.

Ah shit, thank you for catching that.

[panamaniac]

You can't just say that without more details. I'm not surprised that some adjacent buildings might be connected, but any sort of tunnel is news to me. Given how King/Duke/Charles have all undergone heavy underground reconstruction in the past decade I feel like anything that existed would likely have been filled in.

Then again, Chicago managed to get flooded by a forgotten series of tunnels, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_flood . Apparently many buildings that flooded didn't even know they were connected to the tunnels, as the accessed had been drywalled over long ago. So who knows what's down there.

Some of the existing tunnels are between are the block around King, Water, Duke and Ontario. There are tunnels in the Rockway area as well. As DTKVictim said, there were used for running alcohol.

Any tunnels in the Rockway area would more likely be linked to its past as Kitchener’s “sewer farm”, no?

[ac3r]

UW also has a pretty extensive service tunnel network. It used to be a cool place to urban explore if you knew where to get in! Probably a lot harder to do these days, unfortunately: http://matt.wandel.ca/tunnels/tunnels.html

[jeffster]

More seriously though, there are indeed (private) tunnels underneath downtown, but the ones I'm aware of and am lucky enough to have access to are in the very central area. I'm told a number of the connections exist from the prohibition era, and were used for running alcohol. The very narrow and informal nature of some parts would have me believe that too. There is some really fascinating stuff down there that I think this forum would love, but I'm not sure if the property owners would be open to documenting any of it or not.

You can't just say that without more details. I'm not surprised that some adjacent buildings might be connected, but any sort of tunnel is news to me. Given how King/Duke/Charles have all undergone heavy underground reconstruction in the past decade I feel like anything that existed would likely have been filled in.

Then again, Chicago managed to get flooded by a forgotten series of tunnels, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_flood . Apparently many buildings that flooded didn't even know they were connected to the tunnels, as the accessed had been drywalled over long ago. So who knows what's down there.

Some of the existing tunnels are between are the block around King, Water, Duke and Ontario. There are tunnels in the Rockway area as well. As DTKVictim said, there were used for running alcohol.