Lutianen Subway

Public transportation is an tricky issue for large humans cities, and most non-human cities, in most parts of know Multiverse where metropolis do exist. Safe for cheap and unlimited teleportation there is no perfect whey to solve this issue. Where they do have this solution on the other hand there is little point in the existence of cities to begin with. 
    The city of Rome on Ancient History of planet Earth was home for one million people who depended on their feet and horses to get by. All necessary goods for subsistence arrived from farms somewhere, through streets, and roads, seaports and rivers, it reached the tables of each roman family. Mostly without magic, miracle or any other sort of supernatural or para-normal expedient. Many cities on Sharitarn can count with some kind of magic user, the larger and more powerful ones are those where exist a Magic University active, and that necessarily means more than a couple dozen 'true' mages (not just sigraxes) in the city all the time.  Lutianen is one of those cities, the Black Centaur Castle is a prestigious and powerful institution. Still, is not magic what moves people around on Lutianen. 
    Insular City has a large and complex system of main-streets, secondary roads, and small passages on its surface. An elevated road connects Newport to Main Market almost directly, another older structure of that kind used to answer for that essential task when the Old Port was active (and called just "the Port"). Outside the arterial roads and central areas most maintenance of public areas, security and cleaning is done under the initiative of the Caste that owns the sector and answer for it to the High Caste council. 
   Lutianen City counts with rivers, that transport boats from other parts of the island to river ports close to the accesses to arterial ways. 
    The use of animals as mean of transport is regulated in the arterial ways and central areas by the High Council, in theory, and it delegates most the actual decisions to Merchant Caste Heard Quarter. Understanding that the Merchants are the most directly interested in the matter, during normal times. In the Caste Sectors each caste makes what rules they feel more convenient. 
    In any case the use of animals, when permitted, is private business. There is no regular public transportation system, no buss or taxis regulated by Lutianen Throne or High Caste Council. There is a caste specialized in transport, a low caste named Carrier Caste, and that is the same people who take care of post office, but their focus is cargo not people. Sometimes people are cargo, obviously, and them they are included in the vocation of Carrier Caste; as for free people, there is chance to get a ride but the most advisable solution for those who don't want to walk is to buy a mount. 
     Those who have regular business on Lutianen but live elsewhere are likely have a solution already in place. Merchant Houses join to buy/rent houses and cargo beasts in common, to have them available for the representatives of any of them when they arrive in Lutianen. That is the usual solution in most places, Merchant Caste standard, and Lutianen is mostly a Merchant Nation (economically speaking). If you travel by yourself, you must have money to buy a mount for your use in Lutianen and them sell it when you leave the island (unless you transport the animal through sea, what is usually not a rational investment): either that, or you walk.     
    Larger cities on Sharitarn get by with similar solutions for urban circulation. Lutianen has an advantage over most, because in addition to the system I just described they have a underground transportation system that covers most the city. It does not reach the taller areas, such as the hill on the top of whit is the Main Market and the mountain face where the Noble Sector and the Royal Palace are, but has hundreds of stations functioning and open to public access. 
   There is no trains. Lutianen 'Subway' is a gallery of tunnels that gives access to a maze of navigable passages. Those galleries are far bellow sea level, and not connected to city sewer. They are fresh water, amazingly clean for a system used by so many people. 
    Lutianen was build originally as a Sacred Land, a sector of Holly Temples for the gods of Imperial Age, where the Emperors of all nations used to come in times of religious significance. The rest of the time the place would remain empty. When the empire fell and Ludrien (capital of a large empire) slowly transformed itself in Lutianen, the Insular State City, this sacred ground was all that survived. What was Ludrien is now mostly under the sea. 
    This gallery was mostly adapted from the luxurious structures build in Imperial Age, but some passages and most accesses to surface are a product of Lutianen Builder Caste. 
     Stations are illuminated, the tunnels between them are not. The aspect of a typical station reminds Earthlings the oldest European subway stations on Earth, with oil lamps instead of electric light. Some stations have magic illumination, but only the most important ones. The public transportation is done by triremes with male slaves on the oars, most of those are convicted criminals serving temporary sentences. Some citizens have their own oar ships, and permission to use them in this tunnels. 
     The use of the galleries has a cost for the citizens, that is very small and would not cover the price of all the oil burned for illumination in the stations. Non-citizens cannot use the subway without special permissions, granted by the Throne or by the High Caste council.

Type

Architectural Element, Gallery