RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

Philly improvements II: vine st. river to broad

Let’s play urban designer. Everyone is doing it.

People are thinking big about Philadelphia. Here’s the second installment outlining a few ideas that would transform this city for the better.

1. End violence, fix public education.

But seriously, let’s talk about the brick and concrete aspects of fixing the city. The focus today is on center city north, from the Delaware River to Broad. Later installments will bring us clear across Broad to the Art Museum and beyond, but let’s not get too ambitious with 1 post.

Cap it

Have you ever crossed Vine Street? Crazy isn’t it? South of Vine we see a city that’s been alive for the past 25 years. It’s gotten cleaner and greener. We’ve seen the development and growth of all the things that drive the economic engine of a large city. For the most part, south of Vine is doing great.

North of Vine we see an economy that was put on pause since the construction of the Expressway. Sure you can get an expensive place in the “loft district” but to really encourage the northward expansion of center city, something has to be done about that highway.

With talk of capping I-95 from Market to South, why not cap I-676 from 9th to 23rd? Sure there’s the whole ‘cost,’ but the benefits would be enormous. For the northward expansion of center city to actually ever happen, the capping of 676 is an absolute necessity. What we have now are neighborhoods to the south, a vast wasteland from Vine to Spring Garden/Fairmount and spots of development to the north. The goal is to fill in that wasteland with true urban space.

Starting at the River

With the Constitution Center and Franklin Square, a new waterfront greenway, revamped Delaware Ave. and housing development along the river at the eastern edge of the city, we may someday see the seamless flow of neighborhood from old city and the historic districts, straight north into Northern Liberties, Fishtown and beyond. With I-95 capped, a real waterfront and other highways already elevated off the grid from front to 8th, big roads are much less an obstruction in northeastern center city. For the future, look to the east to lead the way.

But back to a capped I-676: 8th to Broad

Chinatown has been hemmed in by the Vine Street Expressway. The area from 8th to Broad, Vine to Spring Garden has slowly, slowly, slowly become Chinatown north, but capping that highway would accelerate that development. Right now Chinatown north is a strange no-man’s land full of warehouses, abandoned buildings and trash strewn lots. It would be nice to see some commercial and residential infrastructure added to what now hardly qualifies as a neighborhood. Some street life would be nice.

Philly’s Chinatown is small and needs room to grow. With insurmountable barriers to the eastern, western and southern borders, the area to the north is the only direction for the neighborhood to expand. Capping the highway would make this development much easier.

The Viaduct

While we’re thinking big, we mine as well imagine the Reading Viaduct, that abandoned above-ground rail line that snakes from 12th and Vine to 9th and Fairmount as an asset and not a liability. The apparently defunct Reading Viaduct Project sought to turn the old rail bed into an elevated green space. Paris has done it. New York is doing it. We can too. As the viaduct would cut across several new and growing neighborhoods, including Chinatown, the brand new PHA construction between Fairmount and Girard, the existing north of Spring Garden area and the extreme western edge of Northern Liberties, converting the viaduct would benefit many lives in many neighborhoods.

And… that’s all for now.