There's an old joke I heard while visiting Rome. It translates to "Did you hear? They found the ancient ruins of the C tunnel while excavating for the C tunnel."

Obviously the solution is to just build another city on top, complete with subway.

Screw subways, Rome should make Elevated Rail on fake aqueducts.

Rome is “please don’t touch that, it’s 2000 years old” - the city

Rome was not built in a day makes more sense now

Damn, excavation in Rome must be so fun for archaeologists

If you think that's bad, try digging deep enough to avoid damaging ancient artefacts but not too deep because the city is coastal. Thessaloniki's metro network has been under construction since 2006 and is only expected to begin operating later this year.

My uncle was a project manager for a large construction company. His stories about working in North America vs. Europe are hilarious. In the US, finding a human bones or an archeological artifact causes huge delays, requires calling in specialists from far away, and will usually make the news. In Europe they have specialists on-call for a whole slew of things that will inevitably be dug up. Archialogists for the really old stuff, historians for the more modern, and even EOD techs for unexploded bombs from wars. Deadlines would always include the expectations for the delays that would occur on every project and no one batted an eye at finding something that required extra care.

Just build a subway at street level. Hundreds of years later it will be underground.

Excavations accidents in other countries: i think we found a dead Dog, poor lad. Excavations accidents in italy: wait, is this the tomb of Caesar?

I happen to live in Rome, right on line C, and I can say that everything stated in the video is spot on, however it doesn't tell the whole truth. There are some other aspects that add up to the archaeological challenges that a city like Rome making building infrastructure much more complicated, and already built infrastructure much more unpleasant to use. To briefly sum them up: -The municipal transport company is extremely inefficient and poorly managed, as are the in-house company and offices in charge of managing infrastructure projects. The line C extension has been plagued by dozens of project reviews even before any construction started, regardless of who was mayor at the time. -The municipal, regional and national government are usually never ruled by the same party and, in a very roman fashion, they all try to mess with each other's business, for example withholding funds, denying authorizations, changing regulations. They then accuse each other of not caring about the city and not being capable of running it properly. The whole saga with the Rome-Ostia and Rome-Viterbo commuter lines, operated for years by the city but owned by the region, which should have been turned into metro lines decades ago, is a prime example of these conflicts. The company building the C line threatening to irreversibly bury the tunnel boring machines deep under the Coliseum unless they received funding before a specific date to keep digging until Piazza Venezia is another example. -The fact that most of Rome is considered an Archaeological area puts many infrastructure projects under the jurisdiction of an authority, called "Soprindendenza", which has a tendency to stop them asking for completely unnecessary changes just because they can: it recently happened for two tram lines, one of which would simply need a renovation and would only cross the archaeological area for around 250m in the median of a four lane road, but whose development has been halted until who knows when. -Rich NIMBYs are extremely powerful in Rome, and many local newspapers openly support them. One person was able to delay the opening of a railway line in the suburbs for years just by sending requests for more paperwork to a local tribunal.

Naples, an even older city, has exactly the same problem. At 37 years old, they're still building lines that were started before I was born 😭

One for the end of year feast extravaganza: Roman legend placed the founding of the city in 753 BCE, not 713 BCE

And yet, even with all these digging difficulties, setbacks, and archeological discoveries, Italy still builds metros more cheaply than America. Rome's Line C is estimated to cost €3.5 billion (about $3.794 billion USD, and almost twice the original budget), and is so far 19.5 km long (12.1 miles), half underground and half above, with 22 stations open, and some still under construcion. New York's 2nd Avenue line, meanwhile, cost $4.45 billion for only 2.4 km (1.8 miles) for Phase I, with only 3 new stops, and future Phase II will cost $7.7 billion for only 3 stops.

In the town were I grew up in northern France, they have a similar problem. You can't dig a hole without finding something centuries old. In my old school, they wanted to build an underground gym under the schoolyard. As soon as they started digging, they found yet another merovingian cemetery. Needless to say, patience is key if you want to get anything done.

the mexico city metro is pretty similar in this aspect. there have been thousands of archaeological finds during its construction and there's even an ancient temple to a mexica deity integrated into the Pino Suárez station

Amy gutted not to get a field trip to Rome.

If you understand Italian, i wholly recommend one of the most recent videos from the channel GeoPop that focuses specifically on the Colosseo/Fori Imperiali station. Building Line C has been a complicated and extenuating process and the section that's being built now is by far the hardest. For the Venezia station, they've done a decade of archeological studies and only started actually building the station last summer, meaning it'll be finished in about 10 years. Luckily, the Fori Imperiali and Porta Metronia stations are scheduled to open next year.

The metro in Athens is a lot like this. It includes many artifacts on display that were found during excavation and some sites that were preserved in place within the station.

The same situation happens in Xian(China’s ancient capital) literally every single block has some ancient tombs beneath and the subway construction just run into random kings tombs all the time😂

There is similar problem in Kyoto as well. That's why there are only 2 underground lines and overall more reliance on buses than other major Japanese cities.

they dont need it because all roads lead to rome

Well I would like to point you to the lovely city of Thessaloniki, Greece, and its subway. Fun fact about that subway it still doesn't exist

There is a similar situation going on in southern germanys city of Augsburg, which is also over 2000 years old, founded by the romans and important trade and finance center in the middle ages. The city is to small for subway lines, but old buildings are in high demand, because if you try to build something new, you are pretty much guaranteed to hit some historical significant stuff, which can delay construction up to a decade.

It's worth noting that half of metro C is not underground and it originally was a "tram" which got upgraded to Metro, which means a lot of money was saved, the same goes for half of Metro B, it was originally more of a "suburban" railway and it is not underground, but the Metro A is fully underground (except for a bridge over the Tevere river) and that's why some people consider it as the first real Metro line of Rome.

For those who might think they misheard: Yes, Line B is older than Line A. The first line they built didn't have a "metro" name, it was just considered a normal train line. When they built the second one they decided to start calling them with letters and for some reason they called Line A the new one and Line B the old one. I can't sleep at night.

3:48 that cat sanctuary website is extremely confident and I love it

Italy is like this everywhere! Even in Napoli the subway construction is having a lot of delays because of artifacts being found! But also if you dig a well in your backyard you'll probably find something ancient!

Athens, Greece: "I can relate".

A video by HAI about the metro I often take (and which is almost a meme in Italy) is the crossover I didn't know my heart needed.

Same story as Amsterdam. Amsterdam wanted a metro line (north-south) through the city center. The city is built in the mud and all the historic buildings are built on thousands of piles in the ground. Drilling started on April 22, 2002 and the opening was on July 21, 2018. There were always delays as historical attributes were found. Historic buildings also collapsed where drilling took place. The initial costs were estimated at 1.3 billion euros. Ultimately, the Amsterdam north-south line cost 3.4 billion euros.

I was just in Rome, I forgot how many random sites are just all over the city

I would so buy a metro ticket just to experience ancient ancient Rome! 😅

I'll be waiting till the year 2068 for you to release a part 2

Phew, I almost didn't think about the roman empire today, Thanks HAI!

Reminds me of Toledo, in Spain, which was sort of Spain's capital for about a thousand years and so has a ton of artifact from the roman and Visigoth settlements, so you can't dig two meters before finding something and the authorities stepping in. Fortunately Toledo isn't so big it needs a metro line so it doesn't encounter this problem as often.

*according to legend Rome was founded in 753BC not 713BC

The metro in Bogota, Colombia has been constantly delayed for like 50 years or something at this point, it just started construction, and it looks like more delays are coming, they just can't get their priorities straight, or as of now, whether it's even going to go underground for certain sections lmao

Wasn't Rome founded in 753 BCE instead of 713 BCE?

Imagine all these artefacts in the ground in rome. Probably many people have already dug up something in the garden and not told anyone about it. 😬🤣

I am always in awe of how some areas in Europe have been so densely populated for so long if you just dig around in your yard you could find anything from a significant historical item to insanely valuable old coins. In America where I live about all I'd find would be an old native American arrowhead. If I lived in Europe my hobby would be going through a forest with a metal detector looking for where someone buried a stash of coins hundreds of years ago and it was never found until I would stumble upon it.

Oh just two giraffes below the surface. Okay makes total sense. Very intuitive unit right there.

I'm very curious about what gets classified for 'destruction' and how that works. And how Rome was basically abandoned for 1000 years after its fall in the 400s until coming back in the late middle ages. It went from 1 million people to 40,000 people who grazed cattle in the old forum. That deserves its own video, maybe even a full length Wendover one!

They call the unfinished subway the unicorn, everyone’s heard of it but no one’s ever seen it

Half-As Interesting/Wendover Productions; The one guy who definitely thinks more about trains and planes than he does about the Roman Empire.

The same problem also applies to people or companys all over italy. For that reason there are many who hide the fact that they found something and just continue the construction without letting authorities know about the finding.

OK, but I need to know now, why is subway construction cost per mile so expensive in New York ? What's their excuse?

Love your choices for units, 2 giraffes is exactly what I needed to understand how far down that stuff is

Kyoto and the surrounding regions faced the EXACT SAME problem when building it's subways. It's always a pain in the ass to build basically any large modern infrastructures in historically valuable places

Correction: The founding legend of Rome puts the establishment of Rome at 753 BCE, not 713 BCE

Thank you! I went to Rome and love trains! So I was surprised by the lack of subway lines. A tour guide explained the same thing you did plus Mussolini reasons for the subway! So Mussolini wanted to build a fancy subway but after digging they all realized that there is alot of historical stuff underground. Mussolini wanted to reinvent Italy into the Roman Empire so he actually was willing to wait as they did archeological excavation...unlike everything else Reasoning being that destroying Roman stuff would be against his MO. Thus why Line A goes around alot of the old/touristy parts of the city.

Same in Athens and Thessaloniki, which hasn't made a metro line for more than 20 years.

We also have an archeostation in Bucharest, called Politehnica where the floor of station is made with the fosils found there while making the metro

using anything but traditional metrics? 100x big ben? half a banana? 2 giraffes deep? 😂 edit: half a white house? 💀

Interesting depth measurements.. excellent

Same is true for Istanbul, when Marmaray project finished, they had enough ancient artifacts to open a literal museum and so they did 😅

we have the same problem in istanbul, whenever you dig somewhere you find something historical. you invite the right people(professors etc) and they dig and take out the historical stuff in a right way and you continue your metro constructions. it delays for years but you still able to do it. it is not an excuse.

Notice also that there is a safe version of the classical seven segment display where the 7 has the upper left segment active and the nine lacks the bottom segment. This is used so that if one segment fails, the displayed number is always invalid.

They have the same problem in Athens. When building line 1 towards the end of the 19th century nobody cared, but for new lines it's difficult now. The Agora was recovered after line 1 was built afaik, so it now just runs across the place, but at least only at the edge and not straight through the middle. The new lines 2 and 3, both opened in 2004 for the Olympics, have these museums mentioned in the video integrated in the stations and it's really cool.

Absolutely excellent video on a great topic

I appreciate that Sam is using the only proper patriotic American units of measurement, bananas. None of this feet or meters nonsense, only bananas.

i’m excited for the prospect of line d though. my school in rome was in the western part of the centro storico close to the river and the metro doesn’t really go there, so having the metro there would make it oh so perfect

Sam's "imitating people talking about Roman roads" voice is my favourite thing today

the imperial measurements go wiiiiild in this one, i'm sure the americans really appreciated it

Surely the cost can't be truly measured if each station becomes a tourist site

“Big Ben Clock Tower” thats one for the annual HAI mistake episode

Athens had similar problems with its Metro too. They went down the route of turning stations into Museums aswell.

2:17 Don't feel quite so bad now about the London UndergrounD Jubilee line extension causing the tower of Big Ben to list 14mm!

Visited Rome last year, still curious about why Rome metro is so tiny compared with that in Milan. Thanks for your video

*The legendary date of Rome's foundation is 753 BC.

I heard something very similar to this while having a beer with a mexican archaeologist. They have power to shut down construction sites and mark them as archaeological sites if any historically significant objects are found while digging. This makes everything very complicated for large projects, as there are over 16 thousand suspected pyramids/archaeological sites scattered around meso-america. Also, to avoid archaeological regulation, sometimes these large construction companies will bury discoveries in concrete before anyone can stop them to avoid a multi-million project to be halted. My beer pal told me he knew of a full mammoth skeleton that was covered in concrete for this very reason.

As a roman, not only it is difficult to build subways, there's always a weird frequency. Sometime a train can come straight after the other one comes and sometimes have huge time gaps in between. Also the map at the start is kinda inaccurate.

Thing is, no one is stopping them from building a city-wide tram network.

Well duh! Everybody knows: Rome's subways weren't built in a day...

Rome does have a very extensive tram network on the other hand though and good regional rail and buses

They have the same problem in Milan, in Milan line 5, which began construction after line 4, has been opened fully while not even half of the planned line 4 has been opened due to archeological delays.

This is pretty cool! I paid £30 to look at junk in the Louvre. Pretty exciting that a subway ticket will include a museum gallery

Legend has it that the Silver Line in Washington DC had the same problem, only with secret unmapped fiber optic cables, not ancient ruins. Every time the tunnel boring machine snapped another cable, out would come the men in black.

Sam: "Rome, trains, archaeology, politics..." my brain: "DIGGY DIGGY HOOOOLE!!!"

happy new HAI video for all those who observe this holiday

Same issue in athens, but mostly in the city center. They do have a couple of ancient buildings visible inside one of the metro stations too.

Conveniently this video dropped the same day I started planning a trip to visit Paris, Milan, and maybe Rome.

Sam do you understand how big you implied the roman artifacts were when you used big ben as a scale. thats ridiculous. a vase as wide as big ben's clock tower? 4:01 for reference

Check Thessaloniki, Greece metro. They started working on it in the 90s and and it's not complete yet

Same in Thessaloniki. We’re still waiting for it.

Coming from a country with a cold climate that prevented large-scale human habitation for most of history, with so few buildings built out of stone that would survive for centuries, that little remains even from only 500 years ago, I do look with some envy at countries that have been major centres of civilization for thousands of years. Although one will probably grow jaded of it fairly easily, there must be a sense of wonder in living among the works of the ancients. Everywhere you look, you are reminded of the great works (and even the ordinary lives) that came before, perhaps built by your very own ancestors. Every day, you are reminded that you are a part of something ancient and perhaps awesome that started long before you were there, and might go on for long after you are gone, and you have a chance to do your own part in adding to what will come after.

1:04 3:59 5:03 5:18 "Anything but metric"

Look next door, at Athens & even better Thessaloniki Metro in Greece.😅 Thessaloniki Metro is still under construction since the first try to build it im the 1980s

Videos like this remind me how sad torontos subway line is

This story is similar to the Thessaloniki subway construction, where it began in 2006-2007 and most of the stations are done about a year ago

I suggest building an Ice highway in the nether, you could put toll booths in the portals.

3:47 imremebr those cats from my vacation in rome😂

Same happens in Athens, Greece

Sign on Roman subway sites: it has been X days since last major archeological find.

Roma is the only city in the world where you can actually live INSIDE the museum.

That "ooo, auquaducts" made me think he was going to make a lost in the pond reference

Thanks

thank you for using actual units of measurement like bananas, big bens, and giraffes.

Hi Sam! How many busts of Caesar did Amy find while doing archeological research for this episode?

"Sorry, we don't have any money in the budget" "Where did it all go?" "Manually digging subway tunnels"