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Urban Planning
“Where are the cars going to go?” That was the rhetorical question posed by Peter Park, who has been the planning director of Milwaukee and Denver, at a forum last night hosted by the Academy of Natural Sciences. Titled “Reimagining Urban Highways,” the event gave six speakers the chance to talk about moving or eliminating highways that run through major American cities. In Milwaukee, for example, Park was the driving force behind a successful effort to get rid of an elevated highway that bisected the city and decreased property values around it. And if you get rid of a highway, where will the cars go? In Park’s words, “They actually may get around better.”
Other examples given at the forum for successful highway-removal projects included a freeway along Portland, Ore.’s waterfront; the West Side Highway in Manhattan; the Embarcadero, an elevated highway that used to run along San Francisco’s waterfront, which collapsed during an earthquake, was never rebuilt, and now that land is a lovely pedestrian park; and highway removals and relocations in Providence.
The local angle? Diana Lind, executive director of Next American City, a Philly nonprofit dedicated to improving urban environments, has a bold proposal: Get rid of the three-mile stretch of I-95 between the Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman bridges. Yep, just get rid of it.
The controversial Chelten Plaza development plan in Germantown — which would erect a Save-A-Lot and Dollar Tree where a Fresh Grocer once stood — may get an additional $1 million in state funding.
The Rendell administration already awarded $3 million in Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) funds for the project, which is set to be located at Chelten and Pulaski avenues, in 2010. This money will likely be dispersed beginning this summer. Now, City Paper has found that Gov. Tom Corbett's office is considering a request from the project's developer, Pat Burns (of Pulaski Partners), for another $1 million in RACP funds.
Corbett spokesman Eric Shirk says that the extra $1 million was already approved by the Rendell administration in late 2010 — but a contract was never executed — so Corbett's office is currently reviewing it. He adds that the administration is considering all RACP projects on a "case-by-case basis," and can't say when a final decision will be made.
The news that the proposed Chelten Plaza project may get even more public dollars shocked some community members. "I am appalled," says Yvonne Haskins, an attorney for the West Central Germantown Neighbors and other local groups. "In all my years in Philadelphia, I have never experienced such disregard for what the community wants."
Critics of the project say that the developer blindsided the community, and that another dollar store is unnecessary in a neighborhood that has more than 70 low-end stores.
Carly Spross, a spokeswoman for Fresh Grocer (which Burns owns), says the additional $1 million would likely go toward better design, landscaping and other improvements that have been advocated for by Germantown Community Connection, another local group that has butt heads with the West Central Germantown Neighbors over how to best deal with the proposal.
Look for more on the Chelten Plaza project in City Paper this week.
Anuj Gupta, the executive director of Mt. Airy USA, tells Naked City that the community development corporation has won a $250,000 grant from the city to fix up two abandoned properties on Germantown Avenue.
The properties are located on the 6500 and 6600 blocks of Germantown Avenue, in Mt. Airy. This part of the street is an interesting position: It's between Chestnut Hill, an extremely rich community, and Germantown, which has wrestled with blight and poverty for years. In fact, this area is only a couple of blocks from what is widely accepted as the border of Germantown.
"If we can anchor this stretch," says Gupta, "it will help trigger the next wave of investment into Germantown Avenue."
Gupta says the two properties, located specifically at 6614 and 6513 Germantown Avenue, will become mixed-use developments. He hopes that one will end up selling food, thus "bringing quality-of-life amenities to all parts of the community."
The grant comes from the city's Office of Housing and Community Development.
Did anyone hear anything about the South Street Bridge reopening this weekend?
I'll bet. The Nutter administration didn't exactly forget to remind every journalist in town about it late last week â or all weekend. Having favorably mentioned the bridge's reopening within the context of the city's greatly-improving bicycle amenities last week, this reporter found himself eagerly sought-after by the mayor's press office do write about it . . . again.
But hey, why not? The bridge's reopening is, after all, a big deal for Center City, South Street, and a game-changer for commuters (especially bike commuters) from West Philadelphia. And it opened ahead of schedule. And it looks great, and it represents one of the more forward-thinking city projects we've seen in the last few years.
Ask Deputy Mayor of Transportation and Utilities Rina Cutler, and the bridge represents nothing less
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| Rina Cuter |
than a model for city government at its best. Three years ago, as Mayor Nutter took the reigns, the bridge's overhaul had been dragging on for some fifteen years.
"It was really a poster child for government failure," Cutler says. "And I didn't want a ten-year nightmare on my hands."
What followed, she says, was a concerted effort to get the bridge done quickly while navigating a maze of competing interests and visions from the public: some wanted the bridge widened â but that would have cost more and required rebuilding the pilings; others wanted better pedestrian and bicycle amenities.
"It set a tone for how we will do this in the future," Cutler says. "That everything does not have to look like a highway bridge, and that it's really important to engage the community before you have your design."
The result was a two year project that left the bridge with bicycle lanes in both directions, a pedestrian crosswalk, scenic lookouts over the Schuylkill, and (to come) a ramp connecting the bridge to the Schuylkill River Trail below.
Cutler, perhaps deservedly proud, calls it "A new model going forward in terms of how we do design, community engagement, and how we need to pay attention to project delivery."
What do you think? Post opinions, observations, rants, etc. about the new bridge below.
The bridge is great! A city project completed on time and on budget? I will venture out on a limb and call it unprecedented. And, I positively love the enthusiasm that the city, the South Street West Business Association, and the community generated over the re-opening. I was at a concert this weekend and the host took a minute to shout out to the bridge reopening. Awesome! Way to go Mayor Nutter, et. al. and way to go Philly! My next question is, now that detoured white people have been re-enlightened about blight in Grays Ferry for the past 2 years, will they just forget about it, or will they work for its improvement?
(Holy smokes, we forgot to mention this is part of CP's ongoing coverage of Philadelphia's slow, but surely inevitable march toward becoming *Biketopia*)
On Thursday, a group of urban transportation technocrats visited Philly for a tour of what we do and don't have going on bicycle-wise. They belonged to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, a group which shares ideas and acts as a lobby for better urban-centric transportation (it turns out that transportation money and policy tends to be disseminated at the state level, which skews disproportionately away from urban issues).
Our visitors included Washington, D.C.-based NACTO Executive Director Eric Gilliland, Portland, OR City Traffic Engineer Robert Burchfield and San Francisco Deputy Director of Planning and Development Timothy N. Papandreou.
The tour was lead by the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia (disclosure: I'm a tee-shirt-owning member), and a few of the chief players from city administration who've been overseeing the actual implementation of Philly's Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan. Bike policy geeks (and angry blowhards) might find this info useful, so here are the brains behind the lanes: Andrew Stober, Chief of Staff at the Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities; Aaron Ritz, who works under him; Steve Buckley, Deputy Commissioner of Transportation; Charles Carmalt, Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator; and Jeanette Brugger, who works on pedestrian and open space issues and the city's Bike & Pedestrian plan for the City Planning Commission.
To give an idea of what this ride was like, our first stop was at the buffered westbound bike lane on Spruce, where we watched a bus and two bicyclists approach the intersection. It was a test-case: the shared use of the lanes by buses and pedestrians is one of those things planners try to plan for.
"Let the bike geekiness begin!" declared a triumphant Andrew Stober, as all three made it through the intersection without incident.
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| From L: Transportation's Andrew Stober, Bike Coalition's Alex Doty, San Francisco's Timothy N. Papandreou |
That's not to say the tour was all back slapping and hurrahs. Included in the tour was the Ben Franklin bridge â the single bikeable (or walkable, for that matter) connection between New Jersey and Philly â whose opening and closing hours are notoriously fuzzy, and which, amazingly, is shut down completely to non-automotive traffic if there's any significant snowfall. Since the Delaware River Port Authority doesn't shovel the walkway either, noted Advocacy Director John Boyle, the bridge simply remains shut down until the snow melts.
There was "riverfront" bike trail â put in quotes because, as one rider rhetorically asked the group at a stop in Penn Treaty park, "How many of you saw the river before we got here?" Except for a new "trail," about half a block long, behind the Sugarhouse casino, Philly's riverfront bike trail remains woefully not-by-the-river.
Still, there's much to be excited about: The South Street bridge is set to re-open this week, and will feature new bike lanes in each direction, the eastbound lane extending down south street to 22nd street, where another bike lane guides cyclists up to the buffered bike lane on Pine street, which extends across Center City.
For anyone who commutes â or is contemplating it â by bicycle from West Philly, the reopening of the bridge and the new network of bike lanes are a godsend (for two years, we've had to jog up to Walnut or down to Gray's Ferry). Give it six months, and I expect we'll see a visible change in the number of people using the Center City lanes.
The Pine & Spruce lanes, meanwhile, have finally been repaved and newly-emblazoned with white bike stencils.
Finally, the Schuylkill River Trail will be extended all the way to the South Street bridge â yet another useful connection for getting around the city.
If this stuff perks your interest, check out the city's Bicycle & Pedestrian Plan.
[...] or all weekend. Having favorably mentioned the bridge's reopening within the context of the city's greatly-improving bicycle amenities last week, this reporter found himself eagerly sought-after by the mayor's press office do write [...]
Now if the city would just enforce the no stopping rules in these new bike lanes so that we can actually USE them without jogging in and out of car lanes due to people parking in them whenever they want!
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| Courtesy of PHILADELPHIA2035 |
Maps even sorta crudely drawn ones are a special kind of eye candy.
Which is why we dig the map above. It comes from the May 27 meeting for PHILADELPHIA2035, a Philadelphia City Planning Commission project that invites the public to weigh in on Philly's future from now until the spring of 2011. According to the 11 or so maps from the meeting, common hopes and dreams for the year 2035 include waterfront development, bike-y stuff, getting rid of blight, urban ag and cover for I-95. Check out the rest of the maps from May 27 here.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by thesomersteam, Philly News Now. Philly News Now said: Map Geeked: What Philadelphia will (hopefully) look like in 2035: Courtesy of PHILADELPHIA2035 Maps even sorta ... http://bit.ly/b6LKy1 [...]
[...] Map Geeked: What Philadelphia will (hopefully) look like in 2035 Tags: Eric Fischer, Locals and Tourists Map Geeked: Where locals and tourists take pics of [...]
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