An Interpretation

The Vanished Rathole
by Lawrence Herzog

It was originally called the "109 th Street Subway," but for most of its life, it was called "the Rathole." The 168-metre tunnel that burrowed under the Canadian National Railway tracks between 104 th and 105 th Avenues opened in 1928 and survived 72 years before being carted away, piece by concrete piece, in 2000.

The tunnel was originally proposed in 1926 as a way to move traffic across the two dozen tracks between 101 st and 116 th Streets and the call for tenders in January 1927 specified a three hinged reinforced concrete arch with a clear span of 32 feet. It was to be 10.8 feet (3.3 metres) high and contain a six foot walk, six foot bicycle path and 20 foot wide roadway.

Mayor A.U. G. Bury officially opened the 109th Street Subway on October 19th, 1928, and a stream of automobiles poured through the dank cavern. Over the next seven decades, millions of cars, trucks, cyclists and pedestrians made the passage -- a test of skill and nerve.

Then there were those who tried but failed to get through. Once or twice a year, an inattentive truck driver got his rig lodged in the low roof line, snarling traffic and fraying nerves. A truck driver from out of town who got stuck in 1990 told officials at the scene he thought a sign showing the tunnel's clearance at 3.0 metres actually read 30 metres.

While vehicles lodged in the tunnel made the nightly news, my favourite Rathole stories happened when it flooded during big summer rainstorms. In the early 1980s, when I was a radio and television news reporter for CFRN, the cameraman and I headed to The Rathole just as an evening storm passed.

A young man was working to free himself from his diminutive import car, inundated by two metres of water. "It was a wall of water," he sputtered, as we got him onto dry land. "It came in so fast, it propelled me down the tunnel and I thought I was a goner."

We decided it more likely that he just drove his car into the flood, oblivious to the danger and the depth of the water. But it made a good story nonetheless.

An Edmonton Transportation study in 1957 recommended a parallel subway to improve north south traffic flow, but it was never built. Instead, the city constructed an overpass over the two dozen tracks along 105th Street in 1960.

The name "The Rathole" was apparently coined by an Edmonton alderman, but exactly who it

was remains a bit of a mystery. What wasn't a mystery was the passions the tunnel, with its dog leg entrances and dank cavern-like interior, elicited from Edmontonians.

When Canadian National Railways pulled trains out of downtown in the 1980s, it was only a matter of time before The Rathole would run out of second chances. It was at last ripped up and carted away three years ago. But I still half expect to see The Rathole when I travel down 109 th Street and, when I cross the modern and level intersection, can't help thinking about the ingenuity that built it and character it added to a drive along 109 th Street.