PlanPhilly: Planning Philadelphia's Future

TRANSIT

FRISCO LANDMARK: The MUNI Metro Embarcadero Line
Running right down the middle of Embarcadero Blvd, three MUNI lines (N, T & F) link the AT&T ballpark to downtown and to ferries, museums, the Fisherman’s Wharf tourist mecca, and half-a-dozen neighborhoods. It’s good for development: The GAP happens to have located its world headquarters in a new building on this line. And it’s fun to ride: Passengers wait on platforms safely raised above the traffic.

 

PHILLY LESSON: Beg, Borrow and Steal for a Riverfront Line
PATCO this month unveiled $700 million plans to build a MUNI-style system along the Delaware riverfront, from Fishtown down to the Ikea in South Philly. It’s a major chance to stimulate exactly the kind of “transit oriented development” Philly needs – maybe creating a whole new neighborhood in South Philly. See the plans at: www.patcopaexpansion.com. But the project is going to need champions. In the fierce competition for federal funding, the project faces major chicken-and-egg problems: How do you guarantee ridership for a line whose strategic purpose is to stimulate development and thereby create future riders? As PATCO’s Cheryl Spicer told PlanPhilly, “I think that it would have to be a very compelling case…It would need a lot of local support.”