|
|
Safety
Safety
Aug. 8
By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly
Philadelphia's future waterfront would be better off if the two planned casinos were built elsewhere, a PennPraxis report ordered up by the mayor and released this morning states.
But if SugarHouse and Foxwoods are built along the Delaware River, the report outlines changes to their designs that would make them a better fit.
These include:
• Dividing the currently proposed wide, rectangular buildings into narrower, taller structures - for Foxwoods, this would translate into two smaller, stacked gaming floors.
• Reducing the amount of parking spaces by half and placing more emphasis on mass transit and pedestrian traffic.
• Extending streets and green space through the casino parcels to provide more physical and visual access to the river.
• And moving up the casinos' timeline for the building of non-gaming uses so that condominiums, restaurants, shops, and other street-level businesses open early on.
PennPraxis Executive Director Harris Steinberg emphasized in an interview this morning that while these steps would yield improvement, they are not offered as a compromise.
"It pushes the envelope, it significantly alters their current site plans, but in the end, we conclude it does not go far enough to make them fully compatible," he said.
Despite alterations to the current plans, the buildings would still be too big, with far too much space dedicated to parking cars, he said - even cutting the number of parking spaces by half would still leave each casino with a garage 1.5 times the size of the largest one in Center City.
If the casinos were to be built with the modified designs and most or all of the parking were moved to remote sites away from the waterfront, that would be a good start toward making the casinos compatible with the vision, he said.
The report was compiled based on a three-day workshop with a team of experts from around the country. Mayor Michael Nutter asked Praxis - the practical arm of Penn's School of Design - to explore whether the proposed casinos could be built in a way that would mesh well with the Central Delaware Vision, a plan for extending the city's urban grid and creating public access to the waterfront that Praxis gleaned from a long series of public meetings and workshops.
(Although a letter sent from the mayor's office to several state leaders seemed to indicate that Praxis was also charged with exploring alternate sites for the casinos, that was not part of the assignment. The city's planning department is looking at that.)
From the moment the mayor asked Praxis to do the analysis, the casinos and their supporters have looked on with skepticism. When both the mayor and Steinberg publicly said that it would be better if the casinos were built elsewhere, the casino interests asked, how could the study possibly be unbiased?
The findings of this report are likely to be similarly received by SugarHouse and Foxwoods.
Both casinos have repeatedly stated that they are committed to their sites and their designs.
Adapting these changes would require the casinos to do a complete redesign - and that would not come cheap. Steinberg said he has heard no talk of money to help pay for a redesign.
The casino operators have been frustrated by the effort to get them to move. Spokeswomen for both SugarHouse and Foxwoods have said that the casinos did not make the rules, they have only followed the procedure set up by the state, which established the number of slot machines and approved the locations.
Steinberg said his concern is not about the function of the casinos, but their current form, and that the lessons learned from the workshop could be applied to any large building.
The state-mandated number of slots and American casino industry standards hamper Foxwoods and SugarHouse, he said. A casino that offered smaller numbers of stations for more varied types of gambling - more of the European model - could actually work within the framework of the Central Delaware vision, he said.
Contact the reporter at kelliespatrick@gmail.com
FULL STORY TO FOLLOW
July 30
By Thomas J. Walsh
For PlanPhilly Amid the discussions coming out of a three-day PennPraxis workshop addressing the designs of the two proposed Delaware Riverfront casinos, there were some veritable positive vibes about the gaming halls, especially from a California architect with casino experience in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. While pointing out what he considered “gigantic” parking garages, both the SugarHouse and Foxwoods casinos would be “actually an amenity to do what you want to do, which is to bring people to the riverfront,” said Tim Magill, a Hollywood architect who has worked with gaming magnates like Steve Wynn and on high-profile projects like the Bellagio in Las Vegas. “Thinking about how development can happen north and south of both of these sites is an important aspect” of the casinos’ plans, Magill said. “On both sites ... there is potential for major public access. By minor modifications [from the casino developers], you could deliver on your goals.” Those goals comprise the 10-step civic action plan laid out by PennPraxis for the central Delaware waterfront for the next decade. But Magill was laying out facts about the gaming industry around the country – that, if developed in a smart fashion, casinos can be leveraged to pull in the public and increase surrounding property values. After the morning session, Magill pointed to an example on a large map, among many views of the river pinned to the walls. He told PlanPhilly that one site, now the home of Wal-Mart and Home Depot (and their accompanying mega-parking lots), would probably be redeveloped, since it sits directly south of the Foxwoods site. The big box stores represent “property values that have not been fully realized,” he said. “The developers know that. What they’ve done is sort of land-banked it” with the retail chains serving as an interim means of cash flow. It’s about the vision
The workshop, with a couple of dozen city representatives and experts on traffic, transit, environmental and ecological matters, got started Tuesday night, with the group concluding that the two casinos are not currently compatible with the “civic values, principles and design guidelines” put forth in the Praxis vision of a redeveloped waterfront. (See previous story from earlier this morning here: http://www.planphilly.com/node/3607.) The presidents of both casinos declined invitations to the workshop from Harris Steinberg, executive director of Praxis, in strongly worded replies (see Foxwoods' and SugarHouse's) that said their presence would be pointless, since Steinberg had stated publicly several times that he and Praxis were against the casinos ever breaking ground. But Steinberg stressed that he’s not anti-casino, and that Tuesday evening’s conclusion that the casinos were incompatible meant “only as currently designed.” His goal, he said, is to tease out how these projects, on these sites, can contribute to the overall Praxis vision and action plan, endorsed last month by Mayor Nutter. That’s what Steinberg charged a smaller afternoon group to come up with. Magill started that process by laying see-through drawing paper over the Foxwoods site and marking up areas where, for instance, retail could replace parking garage facades, or spots that seemed realistic as possibilities for more vertical development. With a few “minor modifications,” Magill said, the casinos could be “activity generators that will prime the pump for other properties” down the line. “Casinos are highly public,” Magill assured the attendees. “The key is to optimize the public’s access to the river. I actually think you’re on your way.”
‘No man’s land’
But before that happy scenario can play out, there are infrastructure questions galore, not the least of them having to do with parking and the importance of incorporating the casinos’ plans for extending existing streets to the riverfront, along with the opportunity to stress impacts to the environment, from the new buildings themselves and from the traffic they bring to the problematic Columbus Boulevard (also known as Delaware Avenue), which Steinberg called a “no man’s land” for pedestrians. “By what criteria do they contribute?” Steinberg said was the main question underlying the workshop. “Tim [Magill] is saying they could be, but not necessarily that they will be. The real concern is that there is clearly not a parking solution. And we’re going to push back hard to see where things fall in terms of the civic vision. We’re here in an advisory capacity.” Steinberg said he’d like to deliver a report on the group’s findings by Friday, Aug. 8. Even with the parking question, which dominated the afternoon session, Magill posited some California optimism, suggesting that encouraging bus transportation and off-site “employee parking pods” would actually enhance sustainability and a transit-oriented boulevard. Ecological and environmental concerns were aired before lunch, with the theme of “honoring the river.” Using the water in the best way and protecting the estuary were main points. Mark Alan Hughes, the city’s first Deputy Mayor of Sustainability, admitted that any recommendations on these fronts would be “aspirational” at this point. “We just want to know where they are,” Hughes said. “There can be no deal-breakers. There are tools [related to energy and emissions] that are just not there yet. We have a set of mechanisms that we are working toward.” Waiting and seeing
Terry Gillen, senior adviser to Mayor Nutter for economic development and the interim executive director of the city’s Redevelopment Authority, said the most significant issues have to do with air quality, within the context of traffic and parking. “It’s a very car-centric industry, at least in the U.S.” she said of the casino business. “In Europe, they have a different model.” Magill also said that modern casinos have been increasingly moving toward maximizing spaces for non-gaming activities, such as nightclubs and spas. Indeed, the state of Nevada reached a point several years ago when non-gambling revenues surpassed the total “take” from slots and table games, a trend that has only increased. The proposed Philadelphia casinos are said to be “mixed-use” from the start, and attendees at the afternoon workshop wanted to make sure of that. But subsequent phases of development, contingent upon the success of the initial building phases (with 2,500 slots for each casino) have been a consistent concern among city officials since Nutter took office earlier this year. Foxwoods and SugarHouse have had an entirely different relationship with City Hall since the change in administrations, and contend that permits have been intentionally stalled by order of Nutter. They cite nothing but favorable decisions from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board and the state Supreme Court. “There have been at least five different traffic studies, including ones by the Mayor’s Gaming Advisory Task Force, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, SugarHouse, Foxwoods, and the City Council,” according to information on the SugarHouse web site. “I can only hope that we can come up with some decisions that they’ll look at,” said Gillen. “We’ll have to wait and see.” On the Foxwoods web site, the owners say the casino “supports the city’s long-term goal of economically reinvigorating the remainder of the riverfront, and will provide public access to the river.” For its first-phase development, it lists restaurant and lounge venues open to the public, fine dining, sports bars, a 2,000-seat showroom, retail shops, a 4,200-space parking garage and a riverside walkway, in addition to the 3,000 slot machines. The Philadelphia problem
Regarding the possibility of later phases of development, with a large hotel and more casino space, Gillen said that’s historically been “the Philadelphia problem. Developers come in and tend not to put all their cards on the table, and don’t tell us about future plans. We want to make sure there are no surprises down the road. The problem is that no one talked about that issue until January.” Gillen said nailing down long-term plans is especially important from the city’s point of view because only when the later developments – the hotels, restaurants, nightclubs – become reality will the city see tax revenues. For the first phase, which will mostly be income from slot machines, the state will be the beneficiary. Paul Levy, the popular president of the Center City District and the Central Philadelphia Development Corp., said developing master plans is vital for setting guidelines for major developments, but he may have surprised some attendees by suggesting that with regard to the casinos, “the horse” is “out of the barn, or partially out of the barn.” “These casinos started the design process, and we as a city are trying to change the rules,” Levy said. “The development of a master plan is absolutely essential. ... We’ve all got to realize that we’re playing catch-up.” In less direct terms, others agreed, saying recommendations on street landscaping, balance of retail with gaming, the creation or reduction of traffic lanes, pedestrian metrics, access to the river, ecological concessions, safety and any other concerns – broad in scope or narrow – should be offered as an opportunity to implement smarter growth along the waterfront. “This is a neutral analysis,” Steinberg said, as the afternoon session started. “The report that’s issued will be used as a political tool by various constituencies, so it’s important to be sure about ‘What would it look like for a casino on that site to comply?’” with the Praxis vision and Action Plan. In the meantime, Magill said that in his experience, casino developers usually listen to well thought-out alternatives, if only to see if they would make financial sense. Also, trends in the gaming industry have been drifting toward smaller “neighborhood casinos,” even in the Las Vegas and Reno metropolitan areas, Magill said (relatively speaking, SugarHouse and Foxwoods are not considered especially large gaming destinations). These venues have generally placed interactivity with their neighbors as a high priority, even when initially opposed. After the workshop’s findings are written up and presented to Nutter, what then? Looking at large-scale, detailed maps taking up the better part of two large walls, peppered with post-it notes and varying computer-generated images, Steinberg was asked if he thought one or both or neither of the proposed and state-approved casinos will have broken ground a year from now. It might have been a question he’s heard before. “I’m not a betting man,” he said, without batting an eye. Contact the reporter at thomaswalsh1@gmail.com SugarHouse web site: http://www.sugarhousecasino.com/home/index.php Foxwoods web site: http://www.foxwoods.com/AboutFoxwoods/FDC_foxwoodsphiladelphia.aspx
July 30
By Thomas J. Walsh
For PlanPhilly The second day of a “casino workshop” featuring senior city officials, traffic consultants, planning experts and architects began early Wednesday morning under the direction of PennPraxis, the clinical arm of the UPenn School of Design. The discussions were part of what Praxis calls an “independent, third-party analysis of the current casino site plans” relative to its recent 10-year action plan for the Central Delaware Riverfront, which was endorsed by Mayor Michael Nutter. Per Nutter’s request, Praxis plans to issue results from the casino report within 30 days. Present for the discussion were deputy mayors Rina Cutler (transportation and infrastructure) and Mark Alan Hughes (sustainability), Nutter’s economic development czar Terry Gillen, Center City District President Paul Levy and about 20 other professionals, some of them local specialists and some from other cities around the country. Noticeably absent were representatives of the planned Foxwoods and SugarHouse casinos. “You are not an ‘independent’ voice in the casino debate,” wrote Robert Sheldon, president of SugarHouse, in response to an invitation to the workshop by Praxis Executive Director Harris Steinberg. “Even before being tasked by the Mayor to conduct an analysis, you concluded that casinos do not fit into your vision of the waterfront.” Likewise, James Dougherty, president of Foxwoods, wrote to Steinberg that he had spoken out several times against the casinos within the Praxis vision, but that in any case, the point was moot, since the first phase (of three) of the casino development has been greenlighted by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission (during the Street administration) and the state Supreme Court. While Steinberg, in his opening remarks Wednesday, said that the casinos as currently designed do not meet planning and transportation needs for the long-term, he stressed that the workshop was not about re-location of the casinos, or about gambling. “It’s not about use,” Steinberg said. “It’s about form” and how we as a city talk about investment in infrastructure and sustainability. “We’re not going to be taking sides whether these are good or bad developments.” The morning sessions were broken down into four breakout groups to discuss transportation, urban design, ecology and sustainability. Participants were issued a “civic vision matrix,” meant to facilitate discussion of specifics, with 10 goals broken down into detailed questions about the design and infrastructure of both casinos. If the questions were deemed in the negative, the chart further answers if the problem “can be fixed” or “can’t be fixed.” “You’ll note that there’s a lot of ‘can be fixed’ in this,” Steinberg said. Among the transportation subgroup, the discussion moved into not only the capacity and width of Columbus Boulevard (the location of Foxwoods), parking, parking garages and the possibilities of enhanced public transit, but also the future relationship between the casino and the big box retailers to the south, such as Ikea and Home Depot. “We have the only waterfront Wal-Mart in America,” noted Cutler. “The whole thing was developed in a truly suburban fashion. For me, part of what needs to happen is that a.) we don’t make those same mistakes over and over again and b.) to see if there’s a way to mitigate it.” Cutler and others in the group generally agreed that Foxwoods’ plans for re-working Columbus Boulevard would work in the near-term, but there was much concern expressed about ultimate goals for the area. “They are prepared to make big investments, but they might not be the investments we want to see, long-term,” said Jeremy Alvarez, a traffic engineer with Center City-based Stantec Consulting, which has worked with the city on a variety of traffic and transportation issues. “How much are we tying our hands if we allow these investments to go forward?” Cutler also reminded the group that Columbus Boulevard is the official, federally mandated “escape route” for Interstate 95. The concept of a new light rail system, which would alleviate many of the congestion concerns, was talked about, but such a system is “10 years away and a lot of money” at best, Cutler said. PlanPhilly will continue to update this developing story as well as bring you video out-takes of the conference. Contact the reporter at thomaswalsh1@gmail.com
March 31
By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly
Over the last 18 months, the city has had a case of “civic engagement” fever. The symptoms are a rash of Sharpie-wielding facilitators, an outbreak of breakout groups, a yen for cold cuts and cookies, and contagious debates on the future of Philadelphia.
• PennPraxis asked communities to rethink what can be done on the Central Delaware Riverfront.
• Great Expectations sessions were organized by The Inquirer to figure out how to make us the next great city.
• Multiple city agencies and organizations led Green Plan discussions on how to improve the environment.
• The City Planning Commission set up a circuit of Imagine Philadelphia roundtables as the first phase in drawing up a new comprehensive plan.
And there are more requests for your presence coming down the pike. Anyone with a mind to share an opinion has had a choice of soapboxes and a variety of willing ears.
But what is behind the recent spate of invitations and concern for public input? Just how much longer will people show up before they sink into civic engagement fatigue? And why does the city seem so damned democratic lately?
Athens, Rome, Philadelphia
Coordinating the civic engagement programs for both Great Expectations and PennPraxis has been Harris Sokoloff, director of the Center for School Study Councils at the University of Pennsylvania. Sokoloff traces the framework of that work to the senates of Athens and Rome.
“In every decision-making process we have where people come together in some sort of equal terms, we use some form of deliberative model,” going back to those early republics. “The tools we’re using are different; the ideas are still the same. It’s still a matter of: people get together, find a way to identify the issues, what the pros and cons are, the different ways of understanding the issues and the different forms of action, and use that in the decision-making.”
As in ancient Rome, “power politics” always play a part, Sokoloff adds, but there are ways to keep the process transparent and the public an important partner.
Beverly A. Harper traces her involvement in modern civic engagement to the early 1970s. Harper is founder, president and CEO of Portfolio Associates Inc., the agency that managed the series of Imagine Philadelphia meetings held in neighborhoods around the city over the winter.
Back in the ‘70s, Portfolio Associates conducted a study for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that examined how and where citizens could become involved in the transportation planning process. The agency surveyed the 50 state transportation departments around the country, then took an in-depth look at four departments’ experiences with civic engagement.
“We found that in the Boston area there was almost a billion dollars in projects that had been stopped because of public involvement,” which occurred at “a very late stage in the projects,” Harper said.
“Involving the public early in a realistic way – and realistic means letting them know all of the different factors that will go into the decision-making – does help a project have a smoother development,” she said. “If you involve them early enough and know the kinds of issues and concerns that they have, you can do things to mitigate some of those concerns.”
Civic involvement programs continued into the 1980s, according to Harper, then trailed off for the next 10 years or so. The resurgence in Philadelphia is the result of several factors, she said.
“I think that part of it has to do with federal guidelines related to the National Environmental Policy Act,” the 1970 measure that required federal agencies to prepare Environmental Impact Statements before taking action and then sharing the information with the public. “Many government-funded projects and public agencies use those guidelines to identify the projects where they need engagement,” Harper explained.
Another reason for greater public involvement is governments’ limited funds and resources, she continued. “So one of the ways to help identify what should be done, and how it should be done, is by engaging citizens.”
The third factor is increased sophistication on the part of the citizenry, Harper believes. “Thanks in part to the Internet, they can find out what’s going on. When there are things they don’t like, they know how to get involved and who they should be contacting.”
 Sokoloff’s plunge into the deep end of civic engagement came in 1995, in partnership with Inquirer editorial page editor Chris Satullo. Each year Sokoloff and Satullo took on a new topic that included civic engagement initiatives, from national to local issues, on everything from health care to the needs of a particular school building.
Over the past year, their collaboration on Great Expectations was part of a larger effort, the Penn Project for Civic Engagement, which also included the Delaware waterfront project led by PennPraxis executive director Harris Steinberg. Sokoloff, Satullo and Steinberg had worked together four years before on the attempt to find a developer and the right development for Penn’s Landing.
Sokoloff said the civic trend is due to the realization on the part of government leaders and agencies that “those who must be involved in supporting or solving a problem or challenge ought to be involved in naming and framing the problem, and in helping to find a solution.”
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for example, recently acknowledged that he can’t do anything without the support and involvement of other people, Sokoloff said.
“The leaders can no longer say ‘do this’ and it happens,” he said. “Issues are too complex; the solutions are too complex. Everything requires adaptation. …It requires a different kind of citizen involvement and engagement, and that’s why you’re seeing all these community forums.”
The Right Model
There are many models for conducting civic engagement, Sokoloff said, and he doesn’t claim to have the best one, “though we try to make it better and are constantly revising it.”
In too many cases, the process takes the form of an expert- or advocate-driven discussion. “An expert gets up in the front of the room, makes a presentation, and has a question-and-answer period. Or there may be a group of people who have developed an agenda and all they want to happen is for all the people to bless the agenda,” he said.
Liz Gabor, a real estate manager at the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, was a participant in two civic engagement efforts in recent months. The Imagine Philadelphia session, she said, was an “organic” interchange in which neighbors were asked to brainstorm solutions to city problems. “People were imaginative and came up with very good ideas.”
But Gabor said her experience in the Great Expectations did not seem as productive. “We were told, ‘read this report and comment on it.’ It was too guided.”
Another participant in both the Imagine Philadelphia and Great Expectations sessions found them equally constructive. “I heard similar comments at each meeting and a consistency in what people were saying,” said Jo Ann Desper, a senior consultant for a healthcare services company. “They were both good, open forums.”
Public involvement means more than meetings at which participants offer opinions and possible solutions, Harper said. “That is one tool that you can use to get reaction and input. There are lots of others that can be used,” including surveys, focus groups, and online interaction.
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is in the midst of a public outreach effort for its long-range strategy, entitled “Connections – The Regional Plan for a Sustainable Future.” An online survey is underway through the end of March that will help refine planning in the areas of transportation, land use, economic development and the environment. The survey will be followed by planning exercises, focus groups and public workshops.
The public meetings have dimensions beyond surveys, Harper said. They serve as an educational tool that shows participants how the next person thinks, and they provide “directly and subtly an empathy and understanding of the position that the agency or organization has in trying to come up with a plan, knowing that everyone is not going to be of one mind.”
Those differing views are a vital component of civic engagement. A diverse group of participants is a primary goal in calling the meetings. “I was very pleased with the diversity of the Imagine Philadelphia sessions,” Harper said. “It was diverse in lots of different ways. The meeting in West Philadelphia had lots of young people, and I thought that was terrific. In the Northeast, there were lots of Eastern Europeans, but they were from different ethnic groups. I’m very happy with the cross-section we achieved” over the course of the nine citywide meetings.
Sokoloff also seeks a diverse group of participants. “The idea is always to make the group as inclusive as possible – by gender, ethnicity, race, and different levels of expertise,” he said. “The more diversity, the richer the conversation.”
While different viewpoints are sought, the civic engagement sessions organized for Penn’s design department or the meetings for the City Planning Commission did not specifically invite developers to the table.
But they would not have been turned away, either. “For Imagine Philadelphia, we wanted to hear from ordinary citizens,” Harper said. Developers may have attended, but they would have probably been there in their roles as residents. “The only people we explicitly invited by letter were elected officials.”
In the Central Delaware engagement process, separate meetings were held with developers to gather their input and expertise. “That’s where you say, ‘We’re going to have a closed session with developers.’ And when you do that, you let people know you’re doing it,” Sokoloff said. “It is a matter of transparency, but I like to think beyond transparency to co-production – the idea of experts working with citizens.”
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Even an engaged citizen may need to rest his voice occasionally. To prevent civic exhaustion, Harper suggests more collaboration among agencies. Portfolio Associates is currently undertaking public research into two projects – one looking at ways to ease traffic congestion on the west side of the Ben Franklin Bridge and the other exploring an extension of the PATCO line along the waterfront – with a combined questionnaire and meetings that will ask stakeholders about both issues.
“This is to recognize that people’s time is valuable. I think we need to do a little bit more of that,” she said. “So that you’re not asking the public to come out too many times.”
A more serious problem arises when organizers of civic engagement create “unrealistic expectations about how much say people will have in a project. I think it’s something you have to repeat early and often – that this is just one of the factors you use in the decision-making process,” Harper emphasized. “I think it is incumbent upon organizations who are managing this process to be truthful with people about what their involvement is going to mean.”
There must be an implementation mechanism in place, she said, to show participants their input had a result. If there is no implementation, “I think that hurts other efforts,” she said.
The new Philadelphia Police Commissioner, Charles Ramsey, conducted his own form of civic engagement, a round of six town hall meetings in the six police districts, when he took office earlier this year.
“The commissioner had said he wanted to get the public’s input for developing a plan for Philadelphia,” explained Lt. Frank Vanore, of the police public affairs department. “He knows about policing, but he didn’t know Philadelphia. He was following a format he did in Washington, D.C., where he held town hall meetings to create his strategy.”
According to Vanore, Commissioner Ramsey took notes at every meeting in Philadelphia and shaped a plan to fit each neighborhood. The result? “Some of those things the people said went verbatim right into his plans.” The commissioner’s Crime Fighting Strategy was then posted on the police department’s website for town hall participants to read.
Every municipal or regional issue does not require public involvement sessions, Sokoloff said. “You don’t want to do it with every decision. … You’d get stuck. You don’t have time to do it all. There’s so much that has to be done quickly.”
The problems that require the most “citizen adaptation” are those that call for citizen participation, he said.
But keeping the public engaged through rounds of meetings is “a real challenge,” Sokoloff said. “It’s a possibility that they will get fatigued. I think it’s less likely to happen if what comes out of the engagement – the action steps, policies, proposals, whatever – is responsive to the citizen voice.
“The minute you engage the public in this kind of conversation, you have a responsibility to tell them what you heard, what you did with what you heard, and how what you heard impacted your decisions,” he said.
“People need to know their time is being well spent. They need to know they’re making a difference.”
Desper, the healthcare services consultant, hasn’t tired of civic engagement after participating in two projects. “The more of these the better, as far as I’m concerned. They are a wonderful example of our government working the way it should. They are opening up opportunities for what citizens want at a very basic level.”
Contact the reporter at alanjaffe@mac.com
Nov. 14
By Alan Jaffe
For PlanPhilly
A new vision for the Central Delaware waterfront, forged over 13 months in more than 200 collaborative, occasionally contentious civic meetings, was formally introduced last night with dramatic flare and some compromise on the most disputed elements.
Inquirer coverage
Metro coverage
Daily Pennsylvanian
The proposal to bury a section of I-95 was softened by less drastic options. The dense riverfront street grid was proposed with a nod toward developers’ concerns. And the casinos, the hottest issue, were plotted on the plan – and then dissolved on an alternative map.
The audience of about 1,200 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center cheered the proposals and offered a standing ovation to the concluding video fly-over, a time-warp that transformed the current waterfront into an active, thriving scene of green spaces and well-balanced development and communities.
Public reaction
Approval for the plan, which was coordinated by PennPraxis, the clinical arm of the design department at the University of Pennsylvania, came from nearly every front. Mayor Street lauded the process for engaging the river ward communities and taking on a challenge that has eluded the city for decades. Michael DiBerardinis, secretary of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, called the Civic Vision “meaningful and important.” Riverfront developer Bart Blatstein said the plan is “a great start.”
Dissenting voices in the audience condemned any allowance for casinos, intermittently disrupting the presentation by PennPraxis executive director Harris Steinberg, who has guided the Civic Vision through several combative meetings. Outside the Convention Center, a six-foot skunk urged people to wear clothespins to show their displeasure with the Foxwoods and SugarHouse sites.
A panel of government, business and community leaders were invited to respond to the presentation, and they lent their support to most aspects of the plan. But there was a clash over the issue of funding a major I-95 reconfiguration. Rina Cutler, deputy secretary at PennDot, warned that an estimated $10 billion needed to depress the interstate at Penn’s Landing would be hard, if not impossible, to raise. Mayor Street disagreed. Initial response to large projects is always negative, Street said, but “there is plenty of money” if the public says “this is the priority.”
Overall, the evening was upbeat, congratulatory, and very hopeful.
Councilman Frank DiCicco, whose constituents’ fears of waterfront gaming sparked his suggestion that the city create a master plan for the Central Delaware, said the unveiling last night was “the highlight of my political career.” He thanked the William Penn Foundation for providing more than $1.6 million for this first phase of the waterfront process. He also credited Street for signing the executive order in October 2006 that charged PennPraxis with leading the effort.
The mayor noted that “plan after plan failed” to make the best use of the 13-acre parcel on the Center City riverfront. “The thing that should distinguish this report from other studies is you,” he told the audience last night. “We never had this kind of community engagement” in the process before, and “what will deter it from sitting on a shelf is you not letting it happen.”
With just over 50 days left in his term, he urged that the plan more forward with the formation of an organization that will take up the banner and “ensure that this work has not been done in vain.”
Steinberg then took the podium to present the culmination of his team’s year-long labor in an eloquent, 30-minute sales pitch. With archival, contemporary and conceptual images of the waterfront beamed on two screens flanking him, and on screens in an adjoining hall for the overflow crowd, Steinberg emphasized the historical and regional context of the Central Delaware -- from William Penn’s arrival, through the riverfront’s industrial dominance, through the traffic-jammed state of things today. The initial question was, “how do we create a framework for growth?” he said.
PennPraxis conferred with elected officials and every civic group with a stake in the waterfront so that the “pinheads from Penn,” as he heard one resident describe his team, “would not impose their image on the waterfront.”
The planners relied on the values expressed by residents in that series of meetings, and on the best practices for riverfront redevelopment accomplished in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Hoboken. “Man, if we can’t beat Hoboken,” Steinberg laughed.
What the Philadelphia team came up with was three frameworks based on movement, open space, and development.
Movement refers to connections across and beneath I-95 to the river, a street grid that replicates the feeling of Center City life on the waterfront, and a north-south urban boulevard.
A reborn Delaware Boulevard, the “spine” of the riverfront, would mean keeping a six-lane avenue for now, but eventually “skinnying up” the current road to allow for a light-rail or other mass transit line down the center.
The street grid would recall the 17th-century template designed by William Penn “which has guided our identity,” Steinberg said. “We need to think about extending that to the river,” not only to disperse traffic, but also as “the connective tissue” that links land parcels.
The audience applauded the Civic Plan’s suggestion that Septa and Patco lines be linked on a reinvented waterfront. Water ferries and water taxis are also part of the plan, as opposed to a Camden-Philadelphia tram that links the two cities.
Turning to the high-profile proposal of burying I-95 to reclaim the Penn’s Landing area, Steinberg offered a conciliatory tone. “Is there a way to sink it? I don’t know. There is lots more study to be done. It is something that the plan doesn’t live or die on.
“But if we don’t start thinking about it,” he said, “Philadelphia will miss the boat to capitalize on that potential.”
The open space framework in the Civic Vision foresees “a great lawn” at Penn’s Landing, “a great democratizing element of the city.”
Frankford Avenue and Spring Garden Streets were presented in artist’s drawings transformed into pedestrian-friendly green streets of trees, blooming medians, and bike lanes. The string of parks and open spaces along the Delaware would “do work,” Steinberg said, filtering stormwater and pollutants, and creating wetlands, wildlife habitats, tidal gardens, and a healthier city and river.
Land development along the water, and specifically how casinos fit into the plan, has been “the most contentious part of this project,” Steinberg said,
“Not an option!” an audience member shouted.
“Yes it is!” responded another.
“Bull----!” answered the first.
Acknowledging the debate, PennPraxis provided two options for those sites on the waterfront plan, with and without the casinos. But Steinberg said the issue is “not about what is there. It’s about how the buildings relate to each other” and surrounding streets, and whether they allow access to the waterfront.
Other development issues should be addressed through zoning code reforms, according to the Civic Vision. The street grid plan must be codified and buildings must “meet the street line,” with retail, commercial and “life-affirming” uses, Steinberg said. Tall buildings should be staggered along the landscape to ensure “everyone has light and air and views of the river,” he also said.
There is a place on the river for big-box development, too, so long as it is “done more gracefully,” Steinberg said.
The presentation ended with the video, reminiscent of the 1964 World’s Fair ride that looked ahead to the city of the future. The audience was remarkably silent as it was given a glimpse of what Philadelphia could become 50 years from now. When it ended, they rose and applauded the vision.
In an official response to the plan, DCNR secretary DiBerardinis, a 30-year resident of Fishtown, said the unveiling of the plan was an “important event for Philadelphia.”
A century ago, he said, Pennsylvania stood at a similar crossroads, with its forests decimated and streams polluted by the Industrial Revolution. But some leaders had a vision for the commonwealth that helped save its ecosystems. “We are in a similar moment in this time,” he said. Conservation and sustainable communities will become policy imperatives, and “cities that imagine a waterfront like this are the ones that will succeed,” DiBerardinis said.
“The plan is right. The economy of the future will be built around efficiency and sustainability,” he said.
To make it happen, the city must build on the collaboration of the community, DiBerardinis continued. There must be consistent city leadership to shepherd the plan forward, and it must move from a vision to a detailed planning process. Strategic investment must be made and leveraged through the local, state and federal governments, he said. And “early victories” should be implemented “so people can see the reality.”
Inquirer columnist Chris Satullo moderated the panel discussion that ended the evening, posing his own questions and those from the audience.
Blatstein, of Tower Investments, said “planning is not the enemy. The enemy is lack of planning.” He said the Civic Vision has been a “marriage of planners, developers and communities.”
Blatstein also said there should be no gated communities along the waterfront and there should be open and free access to the river.
Cutler, of PennDot, who was among the supervisors on Boston’s Big Dig project, said Philadelphia should not become too focused on a large I-95 reconstruction. “If we spend years debating if it is possible to bury 95, we will miss the opportunity to rethink what else exists there.”
A better choice, she said, might be improved public transit on the waterfront. Because of funding limitations, “we may have to make those choices,” she said.
Mayor Street said an ambitious 95 redo can happen. “It will not happen unless we say this is the kind of investment we want from the local and federal government,” he said. That will require the support of surrounding counties, who must also see that a revived city waterfront will benefit their residents. “The biggest deterrent is perceived regional differences,” he said.
Steinberg said the next steps in the process will be “early action projects,” such as the blazing of a bike trail from the Pier 70 neighborhood to Penn’s Landing, the restoration of riverfront wetlands, and the release of an implementation guide in the spring.
“This is the very beginning,” he said. Alan Jaffe is a former Philadelphia Inquirer editor. He can be contacted at alanjaffe@mac.com
Previous story and videos
July 31 By Matt Golas
For PlanPhilly The three-day, lightning-round, PennPraxis workshop analyzing how two licensed Delaware Riverfront casinos, as well as any large development, can be designed to meet the guidelines of the City-endorsed Civic Vision and Action Plan for the Central Delaware concluded Thursday morning with preliminary recommendations from national experts in transportation, traffic, ecology, urban design and sustainability. In order to gain on-the-ground knowledge, the panel interacted with local and state administrators as well as issue specific and citizen stakeholders during day 2 of the event. The expert team included architectural designer Tim Magill, who brought a charrette-like feeling to the event through his quick sketches of Foxwoods and SugarHouse infrastructure improvements; landscape architect Jose Alminana, who preached a consistent approach to a 100-foot riparian border that would help us “honor the river”; traffic engineers Walter Kulash, Frank Jaskiewicz, and Daniel Plottner, who promoted the idea that the waterfront really needs an urban traffic volume experience to make it pedestrian friendly, and architect Peter Steinbrueck, a former Seattle, Wash. city councilman who is a leader in the field of sustainable growth. On June 26, Praxis was asked by Mayor Michael Nutter to prepare an independent, third-party analysis of the current casino site plans relative to the Civic Vision of the Central Delaware and the Action Plan for the Central Delaware: 2008-2018. Praxis Director Harris Steinberg said the report will be sent to the mayor Friday Aug. 8.
The workshop opened with the group concluding that the two casinos are not currently compatible with the “civic values, principles and design guidelines” put forth in the Praxis vision of a redeveloped waterfront. (See previous story here: http://www.planphilly.com/node/3607.) By the end of three days, the panel had begun to flesh out scenarios that would create a path to compliance for the casinos - or any large development on the river - around four crucial topics: traffic and transportation, urban design, ecology and sustainability. Some big bullet points were:
• Make development scale comply with walk-able street grid
• Slow down the traffic to create urban experience for pedestrians
• Hide the parking garages
• Honor the ecology of the river
• Sustainable development can save money Here’s a more complete but very rough outline of anticipated corrective outcomes.
Traffic and Transportation:
1. What does a multi-modal formula for movement on the waterfront look like?
Phase multi-modal traffic in order to create “celebratory” bus portals; create bus rapid transit lanes; make pedestrian improvements on Reed and Shackamaxon Streets; upgrade bike lanes; use water taxis.
2. What policies might we recommend?
Permit parking. Auto users contribute traffic impact fees based on trip generation. Eliminate perceived requirement that any development must improve existing traffic situation. Stop the perpetual cycle of creating more congestion by creating more capacity.
3. How to address phasing public transportation?
Accelerate design work and planning of rail system. Extend present bus routes to the riverfront. Elevate riders’ experience by improving condition, feel of bus stops. Connect casinos with a shuttle.
4. How many cars do we allow on waterfront?
Limit Phase I of casino plans to four-fifths of total or 2,400 cars and then take wait-and-see-approach in the event more parking is not needed for Phases II and III. Remote parking for casino employees. Think about how to reduce auto footprint through automated parking.
5. How to improve the pedestrian experience?
Streets built at 500-foot block scale. Reduce curb cuts. Continuous ground floor retail and mixed use. Crosswalks at all intersections. Ability to cross in one light sequence. More generous sidewalk area. Shrink and civilize valet parking and casino arrival courtyards. Appropriately light and landscape streets. Urban Design
1. How does massing of new developments work with vision plan?
Invoke 500-foot public access and street network. Separate parking from casinos. Leave 30-40 percent of property as open space. Consider mid-block corridor. Balance mix of uses through projects that create more urban environment as part of the public realm.
2. Can we develop vertical gaming floors and move away from the big-box concept?
Vertical footprints are a better use of the land. The trend is toward multi-flagged development featuring variety of places in one spot.
3. How do we connect development to its contextual neighbors?
Create activities and attractions all along the riverfront. Activate streets through a parallel street network. Accommodate vibrant multimodal riverfront not auto capacity.
4. How to integrate transportation, ecological and sustainable systems?
Streets are part of the public realm and should be designed so they are environmentally sustainable. Reduce impervious surfaces. Remediate storm water runoff. Push local government for green strategies and initiatives. Ecology
1. How to measure the ecological impact of development?
Generate conditions around open space, going green, LEED certification, water issues, carbon footprint issues that, by the end of development, will ensure we have something better in those areas than what we have today. Naturalize the river’s edge.
2. What standards do we use to create ecologically responsible development on land and at the river’s edge?
Soften the transition between the public domain and the river, especially on the edge. Take full advantage of restoration activities. Insist on 100-foot riparian setback because it is last chance to manage storm water before it goes into the river. Create pervious paving, natural habitats. Make places perform ecologically. Take advantage of solar energy.
3. Are there other factors to consider?
Impact of flooding and global warming. Sustainability
1. How to define and measure sustainability within the context of the site and the city?
It’s all encompassing. Consider transportation, material, building design, culture, heritage with examples such as percent of energy generated on site; how to handle waste reduction; the use of local and recycled materials on the site; how water is managed on site; make LEED silver as a minimum requirement for building on site; renewable energy to power slots machines; consider density and FAR incentives.
The casinos’ point of view
The presidents of both casinos declined invitations to the workshop from Steinberg in strongly worded replies that said their presence would be pointless, since Steinberg had stated publicly several times that he and Praxis were against the casinos ever breaking ground. But Steinberg stressed that he’s not anti-casino, and that Tuesday evening’s conclusion that the casinos were incompatible meant “only as currently designed.” His goal, he said, is to tease out how these projects, on these sites, can contribute to the overall Praxis vision and action plan, endorsed last month by Mayor Nutter. Foxwoods and SugarHouse have had an entirely different relationship with City Hall since the change in administrations, and contend that permits have been intentionally stalled by order of Nutter. They cite nothing but favorable decisions from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board and the state Supreme Court. “There have been at least five different traffic studies, including ones by the Mayor’s Gaming Advisory Task Force, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, SugarHouse, Foxwoods, and the City Council,” according to information on the SugarHouse web site. On the Foxwoods web site, the owners say the casino “supports the city’s long-term goal of economically reinvigorating the remainder of the riverfront, and will provide public access to the river.” For its first-phase development, it lists restaurant and lounge venues open to the public, fine dining, sports bars, a 2,000-seat showroom, retail shops, a 4,200-space parking garage and a riverside walkway, in addition to the 3,000 slot machines. “This has been a neutral analysis that has been an exercise independent of use,” Steinberg said as the event wrapped up. “The report that’s issued will be used as a political tool by various constituencies, so it’s important to be sure about ‘What would it look like for a casino on that site to comply?’” with the civic vision and action plans. “I think this is a new day and we are covering new ground and creating a higher standard for developing the waterfront – and eventually the whole of Philadelphia.”
Contact the reporter at mgolas@design.upenn.edu
SugarHouse web site: http://www.sugarhousecasino.com/home/index.php
Foxwoods web site: http://www.foxwoods.com/AboutFoxwoods/FDC_foxwoodsphiladelphia.aspx
July 23
New Google feature: pound the pavement
By Seth Budick
For PlanPhilly
Sometimes it seems like every few months a new list appears claiming to rank America’s best walking cities (see two recent examples here and here). Last Thursday, the newest walkability rankings went up on the Walk Score website and as usual, Philadelphia places near the top with a #5 rating, behind San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Chicago. Though these types of rankings are remarkably good at attracting media attention, it’s not always clear what they mean for the average pedestrian. Fortunately, Walk Score is particularly transparent about what its ratings try to capture; the availability of nearby businesses and amenities like parks and schools. This fits in well with a rapidly expanding body of literature in the fields of planning and public health which is taking a more scientific approach to linking a place’s walkability to quantifiable aspects of its built environment. As interest in walkability grows, driven in part by rising gas prices and booming downtown populations, Philadelphia is well-positioned both to serve as a model to other cities, and to learn from the lessons of other walkable places. What makes a walkable place? So what is it that makes a place walkable? Or to put it another way, what are the key features of an environment, whether it’s a street, neighborhood, or entire city, that make it conducive to walking? Common sense is probably a reasonable guide in answering this question, according to Nando Micale, Principal at Wallace Roberts & Todd. “When it comes to walkability, this is not rocket science,” he said. But while any pedestrian is intuitively aware that some streets are more walkable than others, there has been a growing interest in providing a more quantitative answer to this apparently simple question. In recent years especially, transportation planners and urban designers working in this area have been joined by many in the field of public health who share an interest in the effects of the built environment on physical activity. As a result, it’s become common to see assessments of the impact of low density, single-use development on walking and other forms of physical activity. The predominance of suburban sprawl clearly adds to the relevance of this work, a goal of which is to develop a scientific approach to walkability assessment and a set of recommendations for creating more walkable, and thus potentially healthier places. According to Dan Burden, the Director of Walkable Communities and a consultant on walkability, suburbanization and automobile oriented planning have forced us to relearn many of the basic lessons for creating environments intended for people instead of cars. As he explained, “There was a time, of course, in history, when there was no such need to assess walkability. Every neighborhood, every street was walkable. There was just no other way to design.” So how can one determine what makes a place walkable; what factors affect whether or not people actually use the street? It seems obvious that this might depend on a combination of things – everything from the speed of traffic to the presence of a grocery store – making it difficult to imagine how to measure the effects of those individual features. There are a variety of methods for dealing with this complexity of the real world, but the solution for many researchers working in the area has been to use statistical tools that can tease apart the impact of multiple variables. In many cases, these factors are initially separated into those that can be measured from maps or databases – things like block length and population density – and those small scale properties of the environment whose measurement requires observers to actually visit a street – such as the number of benches and the condition of the sidewalk. Researchers then gather data on the length and number of walking trips made by people in the area, often by using surveys, in hopes of finding correlations between walking and some features of the environment. By now, a growing number of studies have suggested that many of the large-scale, neighborhood-level variables do have a clear impact on the number of walking trips. For instance, in a review of the recent literature, Reid Ewing & Robert Cervero considered the relative importance of what they call the 3Ds – density, diversity (mixture of land use), and design – on the fraction of trips that people make by car or by alternate modes of transportation. In evaluating dozens of studies, they found that in areas of more diverse land use and higher density (both population density at the trip origin and employment density at the destination) a much greater proportion of trips were made on foot or by bicycle. A good example of this type of result comes from a recent study by a group led by Christine Hoehner at St. Louis University. She and her colleagues looked at the effects on physical activity of everything from the presence of sidewalks to the availability of public transit. After quantifying a huge range of variables that characterized the street, they found that the number of destinations within walking distance of residents’ homes (for example supermarkets, dry cleaners, etc.) was most strongly correlated with activity (including walking). The idea that people will walk more if they have places to go is certainly intuitive, and this metric has been popularized by the Walk Score website. Walk Score gives any location a point value based on its proximity to retail and amenities like parks and libraries. To Matt Lerner, Chief Technology Officer of Front Seat, the software company that developed Walk Score, a walkable place is one where a person has “the ability to get by without a car” and this is precisely what the website tries to capture. The new rankings include maps of America’s 40 most walkable cities, color-coded based on the Walk Score metric. These scores clearly help to distinguish generally more walkable cities from those that are relatively car-centric; Charlotte, Nashville and Jacksonville round out the bottom of the top 40 for instance. At the citywide scale though, average scores should probably be interpreted cautiously since they can lump together highly walkable downtowns with more suburban neighborhoods, like some sections of Northeast Philadelphia. The neighborhood boundaries used by Walk Score come from Zillow, which means that residents of University City, for example, may be surprised to discover that they wake up in Cobbs Creek. Nevertheless, of Walk Score’s 138 most walkable neighborhoods in America, Philadelphia is home to 7. Those include Center City East and Center City West, as well as a part of town designated “Riverfront” which extends roughly from Front St. to the Delaware River between Reed and Poplar Streets and which has a population of only 942. Other high scoring neighborhoods include Wharton-Hawthorne-Bella Vista, Poplar-Ludlow-Yorktowne, Pennsport-Whitman-Queen, and Fairmount-Spring Garden. All of these fit Walk Score’s definition of a “Walker’s Paradise” meaning that most everyday tasks can be accomplished on foot and that many people get by without owning a car. One obvious complication with using only the proximity to retail and amenities is the difficulty in capturing differences in the quality of those destinations. According to Lerner, the website gets a lot of questions about why it doesn’t differentiate between McDonald’s and any other restaurant in town (it’s treated no differently from Le Bec Fin in Philadelphia’s case). But quality is in the eye of the beholder of course, and as Lerner put it, “On the one hand, McDonald’s is one of the only places you can spend a dollar or two and sit inside somewhere warm, but on the other hand, it’s not very healthy food.” Instead, the developers of Walk Score have decided to stay impartial and not make any judgments about the quality of businesses. This raises the question of whether an automated algorithm will ever be able to capture all of the facets that make a place walkable. For instance, Nando Micale agreed that Center City Philadelphia has great walkability, in large part because it’s possible to walk downtown and access anything you need within a few blocks. At the same time, “you still need to have a qualitative and subjective analysis portion of the work.” While the quality and the depth of the data may someday be sufficient to automate this sort of analysis, he believes that “ultimately, you need to have human judgment.” That is not to say that efforts at quantifying walkability stop at the level of retail availability. Another large-scale variable that is frequently examined in analyses of walkability is the form of an area’s street network. “The overall factor that drives a lot of it [walkability] is the network of streets with sidewalks” according to Micale. For instance, a grid-like layout, with its large number of four-way intersections, is highly connected, allowing a pedestrian to move efficiently from place to place along a choice of direct routes. Further, having many street choices steers traffic off of a small number of arterials, creating a more pedestrian friendly environment according to Frank Jaskiewicz, a Transportation Planner at JzTI Transport Planning. “Instead of having a few streets that are overburdened with traffic requirements, you have a lot that are all carrying just a little bit of traffic. You have that flexibility in designing something that’s really truly balanced between traffic circulation and pedestrians.” Similarly, networks characterized by short blocks are considered more pedestrian friendly according to Reid Ewing, Research Professor at the National Center for Smart Growth. By this criterion, it’s interesting to note that despite its enormous numbers of pedestrians compared to most US cities, many of Manhattan’s East-West blocks are actually quite pedestrian unfriendly due to their length, in Ewing’s opinion. In their review of the recent literature, Ewing and Cervero found some disparity in the results of studies on the effects of the street network. At least some of those studies, however, suggested that the amount of travel by car is reduced in areas with short blocks and well connected street networks. According to Ewing, street connectivity is important, but probably a little less important than land use mix and density in shaping travel choices. At the other end of the spectrum from these large-scale factors, researchers have been exploring the impact of small-scale features of the street environment on the number of people who walk. These sorts of studies generally require observers to fan out into neighborhoods and score them on everything from sidewalk condition to the presence of street trees, while also surveying residents about their walking. Perhaps not surprisingly though, it may be difficult to assess the impact of very local physical features on the number of pedestrians using a street. For example, one recent paper by a research group led by Mariela Alfonzo at Virginia Polytechnic University found that the amount of walking by residents in several California cities did not depend on variables such as the number of street trees or the presence of sidewalks. Since the effect of any one of these types of features is likely to be small, many researchers instead combine a variety of related characteristics, such as the presence of graffiti and vacant buildings, into general categories like “safety” in their analyses. In some cases, this has revealed the impact of a several related features, as in the study by Alfonzo where an index of “safety” did significantly impact the amount of walking. This result is consistent with the experience of Paul Levy, President & CEO of the Center City District, who was unambiguous when asked about the most important things that a city can do to encourage pedestrians: “Clean and safe streets are absolutely fundamental.” This assertion was backed up by Dan Burden who says that a sense of security is the most important determinant of walkability. “It always has been and will always be. People will walk where they feel secure and they’ll choose not to walk where they don’t feel secure; it’s the most basic human instinct.” Rather than directly assessing the effects of a street’s physical characteristics, a somewhat different approach, according to Ewing, is to think of walkability as deriving from peoples’ perceptions of the street environment. “Urban designers talk in terms of physical characteristics, but also in terms of these kind of more basic perceptual qualities,” Ewing said. These qualities include things like a sense of enclosure – the perception of being in an outdoor room – as well as the feeling that the street is designed at a human scale. While these perceptions arise from a combination of individual physical properties, it may make sense to interpret peoples’ reactions to the environment in terms of their response to these more general qualities, according to Ewing. One other key urban design quality, according to this school of thought, is complexity – a place’s visual richness. Looking at Philadelphia through this lens, it’s easy to see how the city’s streets might qualify as some of the most walkable in America. As Dan Burden put it, “If I’m in Philadelphia and I go down South Street, there are things that I will see on the 1000th walk down that street that are brand new to me, it’s so complex, rich, vibrant. It’s not that they weren’t there before, it’s just that there are so many things to take in.” Philadelphia’s walkability So how does Philadelphia stack up when it comes to the variety of factors that shape walkability? Unfortunately, the city has not been the subject of many recent academic studies to specifically focus on these sorts of questions. But in the opinion of many who know the city well, Philadelphia is clearly a relative pedestrian paradise. Center City at least “rates as ones of the best American cities, easily, in terms of its walkability,” according to Frank Jaskiewicz. When it comes to connectivity for instance, much of Philadelphia benefits from a grid of relatively short blocks. Philadelphia’s Center City blocks tend to average around 400 to 500 feet, giving pedestrians a substantial degree of freedom in their choice of routes between two points. Dan Burden and Reid Ewing agree that blocks over 500 feet start to push the boundaries of walkability. As Ewing put it, “Generally shorter is better. Four hundred feet probably is O.K., 600 feet is getting a little long, 800 feet is too long because you’re requiring people to walk four or five hundred feet to get to an intersection.” Focusing on block length also highlights the potential disparity in walkability across the city. Blocks in parts of Northeast and Northwest Philadelphia can be much longer than those in Center City, not to mention that they may lack sidewalks entirely. As Deborah Schaaf, Senior Planner at the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and Chair of the Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Task Force put it, “There are suburban parts of the city.” Another mark in Philadelphia’s favor, according to Schaaf, is that traffic tends to move slowly on the city’s narrow streets. “Even though there’s a lot of traffic, the traffic can’t go very fast, so that’s good for pedestrians.” In addition to the speed of traffic, having a buffer between pedestrians and traffic, such as a parking lane, a landscaped strip, or at minimum even a bike lane, can make a big difference for pedestrian comfort according to Jaskiewicz. For that reason, he thinks that many of Philadelphia’s most walkable streets are those that have parallel parking on both sides and are therefore outside of Center City. As a transportation planner Schaaf has an especially interesting take on what makes Philadelphia walkable. In addition to short blocks and narrow streets, she thinks that the brief signal cycles at crosswalks are integral. In much of the city, signal cycles don’t exceed 60 seconds meaning that you don’t have to wait more than half a minute to cross the street. “You don’t have to wait long to cross the street, and when you do cross, it’s a short crossing,” she said. Similarly, sidewalk width, and the ratio of the width of the sidewalk to that of the street, make a noticeable impact on walkability according to Nando Micale, particularly on wide streets like Broad and Market. Market Street, for instance, may be five or six lanes wide in some locations, but that doesn’t make it feel unwalkable, he said, because of the generous width of the sidewalks. As Jaskiewicz sees it, it’s not just street widths that are important, but the design of intersections, since those can be “major conflict points between traffic and pedestrians.” Intersections are generally engineered to maximize vehicle flow, he explained. This means adding turning lanes and making intersections wide enough to allow large vehicles to make turns at relatively high speeds. This negatively impacts pedestrians by lengthening the crossing and “allowing cars to really fly around those curves which makes everything a bit uncomfortable.” Fortunately, this is one area where Philadelphia benefits from its age. Center City streets are generally simply too narrow to add turning lanes, according to Jaskiewicz. This may be a mixed blessing though, since those narrow streets often aren’t wide enough for parallel parking on both sides of the street, eliminating that important pedestrian buffer and increasing traffic speeds. The inclusion of parallel parking is one reason why, when asked to name his ideal Philadelphia street for walking, Jaskiewicz did not choose Walnut or Chestnut Streets in Center City. While emphasizing the abundance of great examples, he cited Chester Ave., as it goes through University City, as an extremely walkable street. Even he admits though that it’s hard to pinpoint what makes it special. “It has all the main elements; parallel parking, relatively tame traffic; but it also has a lot of amenities; it has a lot of trees, it has nice architecture to look at, it has a nice urban feel to it.“ A good example of a how a street can become more walkable, according to Jaskiewicz, is the change that occurred recently along Walnut Street in University City. The University of Pennsylvania’s new campus plan aimed to create a strong pedestrian emphasis on that street, Jaskiewicz said. As a result, one of the two curbside lanes was converted from a peak period travel lane into a parallel parking lane. In his opinion, this led to a much more comfortable pedestrian experience on both sides of the street at all times of day. While Philadelphia’s density, mixture of uses, and connectivity clearly are an enormous asset for making it such a walkable place, recently, there haven’t really been any recent comprehensive guidelines for creating pedestrian friendly streets in the city, according to Schaaf. Meanwhile, many cities, including places like Los Angeles that probably don’t spring to mind when one thinks of pedestrian utopias, are currently generating new sets of guidelines and recommendations for walkable streets. In Philadelphia, a new Pedestrian and Bicycle Coordinator is being hired, and the Planning Commission is starting a Pedestrian Plan for the city. According to Deborah Schaaf, the steering committee that’s working on the plan will be considering policy issues for the entire city and addressing physical improvements to sidewalks in about a third to a half of the geographic area of the city. This will include South Philadelphia, Center City, North Philadelphia and most of Northwest Philadelphia with the emphasis being on connectivity. Specifically, the committee will be addressing gaps in the bicycle and pedestrian network. Beyond the basic question of sidewalk availability, the Planning Commission will focus on issues like sidewalk width, especially in some of the more congested parts of the city like Center City and Manayunk. Schaaf points out that it’s not just sidewalk width that’s important, but the sidewalk’s clear width, or actual walking width, which takes into account factors like steps, cafes, signs, bus shelters, newspaper boxes, parking meters, bike racks, trees, etc. While there are existing standards, they are not really enforced adequately she said, and whether those standards are adequate needs to be addressed. The outcome of this study, which might be expected within 18 months, will be a list of specific physical improvement recommendations prioritized for both bicycles and pedestrians including a set of policy and programmatic recommendations. While making the necessary adjustments to create a more walkable city, Philadelphia also has to follow PennDOT’s traffic engineering guidelines. Guidelines for important parameters like sidewalk width arise largely from Federal recommendations that are then adopted by the state, according to David Bachmann, Bicycle & Pedestrian Program Manager at PennDOT. Nevertheless, the state agency tries to accommodate specific local requirements. For instance, Bachmann says, when it comes to sidewalks, “there are some local ordinances, for example, requiring sidewalks or requiring certain kinds of things being installed, and we usually work with the local folks on that.” Walkability on the central Delaware waterfront One obvious canvas on which these lessons for walkability are being applied is the PennPraxis Civic Vision for the Central Delaware. Indeed, that framework explicitly includes many of these features, notably, the extension of the city’s existing street grid to the waterfront and the creation of new, pedestrian-scale, mixed use development. In addition to the connectivity benefits of short blocks and four-way intersections, extending Philadelphia’s street grid to the waterfront makes sense for a variety of reasons, according to Nando Micale. The grid is ideal since it both serves as an appropriate response to the historical and cultural context of Philadelphia and because it can accommodate a wide variety of land uses. “The plan for the central Delaware is rooted in the idea that Philadelphia, as a place, has this great history of a street network that’s been flexible over 200 to 300 years,” Micale said. The extension of the grid to the central Delaware, as described in the Civic Vision, would result in an average block size of about 400 by 500 feet. This represents something close to an average Center City block, according to Micale, and would yield relatively short blocks that are still large enough to support a variety of forms of development. For instance, it could allow for the insertion of secondary streets, similar to Sansom St. in Center City, that can further subdivide the blocks into units that might be appropriate for a particular scale of development. For example, “residential land use has a smaller increment of development, as opposed to something that might be a retail and entertainment center,” Micale said. In order to get to this new grid of streets, of course, pedestrians will first have to deal with the highly unwalkable reality of I-95. Asked about the problem of getting pedestrians across highways, Reid Ewing was clear: “It’s a huge impediment.” While the Civic Vision suggests that rebuilding the Center City portion of I-95 has the greatest potential to impact the future of the central Delaware, it is also realistic about the highway being likely to remain a significant barrier in the immediate future. Some of its suggestions for mitigation therefore include the installation of public art, high quality lighting and landscaping beneath the highway. It also proposes incorporating recreational areas beneath the elevated structure, along with linear parks that could connect the waterfront with neighborhoods west of the interstate. Michael Southworth, Professor of City & Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, agrees that creating inviting linkages between the waterfront and the rest of the city’s grid is essential. “I know they’re dreary zones that are extremely difficult. I have given students a project in Oakland similar to this and they come up with crazy ideas like bowling alleys, disco clubs; activities that make a lot of noise and are compatible.” In addition to I-95 itself, Delaware Ave. could serve as a formidable barrier to the waterfront, according to Frank Jaskiewicz. As that street has become more automobile oriented in the last 20 years or so, many of the intersections have been designed to maximize traffic flow, resulting, in many places, in wide intersections with turn lanes that are hostile to pedestrians. “In coordination with extending the grid, we also have to be very careful about how we design those intersections,” he said. Ultimately, connectivity and accessibility are only part of the walkability equation, according to Southworth; people will still need a good reason to cross the highway. As he put it, “Obviously, you need to have places people want to go or connectivity doesn’t do much of anything. You not only need connectivity, hopefully with fairly frequent intersections, and choice of pathways, but you need land use patterns and activities that support human life, things that people want to do.” That “attraction package” as Micale calls it, will hopefully include commercial activity spilling over onto the waterfront from Center City, as well as the potential for whole new neighborhoods further to the North and South. To fully amenitize those neighborhoods, they’ll need to have dispersed parkland, he said, which should offer a variety of reasons to want to reach the waterfront. “I think that in different locations on the waterfront, there’s a different mix of uses, parks being one of those uses, that make you want to get there, to go to the edge, to be part of that community.” And as that community develops, the waterfront may be the most conspicuous opportunity for the city to demonstrate its commitment to maintaining and building on its legacy as a highly walkable place. Though in many places that walkability has been slowly eroding, according to Frank Jaskiewicz, he and others hope that the upcoming changes to the zoning code will mark a return to a focus on pedestrian friendly streets. As he put it, “hopefully, we’ll draw a line in the sand, that we can’t really eat into our urban, walkable assets anymore.” Reader feedback: What streets do you consider to be the most or least walkable in Philadelphia? Please feel free to let us know about your favorite (or least favorite) streets.
Contact the reporter at sbudick@gmail.com
|
|
