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The artificial reef constructed off the coast of Delaware with retired Redbird subway cars has been growing since New York began delivering them in August of 2001. The cars are stripped of their useful parts and nudged off of barges to descend to the ocean floor. The cars serve as an underwater hub of activity, and have been extremely successful in generating new populations of marine life.
The program has been so successful that space for our scaly friends is becoming tight, and Delaware is seeking more cars to expand the reef-space. The manager of the reef program calls the former subway cars that make up the reef “basically luxury condominiums for fish.” The fish population has grown significantly and species “like tuna and mackerel…use the reefs as hunting grounds for smaller prey. Sea bass like to live inside the cars, while large flounder lie in the silt that settles on top of the cars.”
Traffic jams are developing on the water’s surface as commercial and day-fishermen jockey for space and try to keep their lines untangled. Fishing traps have also increasingly been sabotaged and stolen as the reef and its abundant fish populations grow.
The success in Delaware has caused many other states to request the subway cars for their own projects, but the supply of aqua-housing units has dried up as New York plans to begin keeping the cars for itself. Only a limited supply remain for states like New Jersey and Virginia, who also want to develop their own reef programs.
Some great photos of the Redbird reef can be found at NYCSubway.
