Making Pedestrian Oriented Avenues The Future For Lower Northeast

[Bixbyte]

Hahahaha.

So, first the Boulevard is easy to cross (so much so that we can easily add MORE traffic), and then it's dangerous?

Come on, man. If you're going to be a good troll, you need to at least be somewhat consistent with your blathering.

____________________________________
Outlaw
What is the BIG DEAL?
Remove the islands to expand the traffic to 8 lanes and install crossover bridges for pedestrians.
Then provide turns on reds with an inner lane to join the traffic flow.
So simple I dreamed this up riding my pet dinosaur.
Even the Mayor of Third Street is Afraid of Progress?
All you girls know how to do is complain.

[hammersklavier]

Well wider roads do not less congestion make is the heart of the problem. The Boulevard actually does a pretty good job moving all the traffic that rolls along it. What makes it unsafe are the intersections.

The better solution is to sink the three express lanes each direction (with new hard shoulders) in a trench, away from the cross streets. This would eliminate the intersections (along the express lanes) thereby making the Boulevard safer. Three-phase signaling would also make it easier for pedestrians to cross.

Redesign Castor Avenue into another Chestnut Street walkway and watch no one show up.
There is slow population decline. Money pops out of nowhere for these Ivory Tower projects.
PCPC will be growing a magic pixie money tree for their grand schemes.

This is just plain old factually mistaken.

The Lower Northeast is one of the fastest-growing areas of the city, per the 2010 Census. That's why we want to put in more mixed-use (Main Street-scale) development. So that there are more places to live for everyone who wants to live here.

[MarketStEl]

____________________________________
Outlaw
What is the BIG DEAL?
Remove the islands to expand the traffic to 8 lanes and install crossover bridges for pedestrians.
Then provide turns on reds with an inner lane to join the traffic flow.
So simple I dreamed this up riding my pet dinosaur.
Even the Mayor of Third Street is Afraid of Progress?
All you girls know how to do is complain.

The BIG DEAL is that you have demonstrated that you have no connection to reality at all.

All YOU do is complain - and you get your facts wrong consistently.

I've driven and crossed the Boulevard. I'm quite familiar with the subject of transportation.

And I study the Census figures. You clearly either haven't looked at them or consider the Census a Socialist plot to take away your freedom.

You have no spatial intelligence. The Boulevard median, in most places, is wider than two lanes of traffic. Adding two lanes leaves most of it in place. Don't believe me? Take a look at those places where PennDOT is installing emergency pullouts next to the left lanes of the inner drive. Those are as wide as one lane of traffic.

The Boulevard is dangerous for pedestrians to cross because motorists already drive on it as though the speed limit were 55. And even where there are signals, it's too wide to cross in a single signal cycle. There's a reason SEPTA bus routes that cross it stop on BOTH sides of the intersection - the only street in the city where this is the case.

No one is proposing that Castor Avenue be turned into the Chestnut Street Transitway. We - and the Planning Commission - are proposing that it be lined with taller buildings, either residential or office, with ground floor retail. The street is wide enough to support such development without it looking intimidating, and it will boost pedestrian activity along it. BTW, the houses whose backs my bedroom window looks out on front on Castor, so I'm very familiar with that street.

Adding more lanes to the Boulevard as it is now makes all its problems worse. Burying the inner drives in a trench - which is to say, turning them into the freeway people already think it is - and running rapid transit up the median not only pretty much solves the problem, it improves the Northeast's transportation mix.

You say you're a pissed off old dinosaur and call US "fuddy duddies" who don't know what we're talking about?

You, Sir or Madam, are talking out your a$$.

[Outlaw Star]

Outlaw
What is the BIG DEAL?

There's no big deal. Just that you can't even keep your ridiculous positions straight. You can't say the Blvd is easy to cross, and then in the next breath say it's too dangerous, and expect people to take you seriously.

I mean, not that they were taking you seriously anyway, but still...

All you girls know how to do is complain.

Nah, that's just too easy.

[hammersklavier]

I once got out a measuring stick (well the ruler tool on Google Earth) and found out that the Boulevard is actually a full block wide (~200 ft). There's no way anyone can cross that on foot in a single cycle.

[Bixbyte]

I once got out a measuring stick (well the ruler tool on Google Earth) and found out that the Boulevard is actually a full block wide (~200 ft). There's no way anyone can cross that on foot in a single cycle.

You do not run or jog daily?
A block long, look at the road designs right over the bridge.
They have the traffic moving smoothly with a 55 MPH speed limit.
Not a corrupt political bottleneck that is slowing down progress to make money for a bankrupt state.

[hammersklavier]

...And across the bridge, what are people not doing?

Just because traffic is moving smoothly does not mean that the area is prosperous. Just because there's a veneer of prosperity does not mean that a municipality is financially sustainable...or stable. Check out what Chuck Marohn says about long-term obligations sometime.

The fact of the matter is that those same communities hosting "free-flowing" (not really), "safe" (not at all) "pedestrian-friendly" (more like pedestrian-nonexistent) transportation corridors are also shockingly over-leveraged; what they pay in taxes (and they pay a lot) does not even begin to come close to paying for the maintenance of their infrastructure...which holds them hostage to Fed grants...which in turn demands ever-bigger, ever-less-sustainable infrastructure "improvements" (we're way past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to "congestion relief" (=how to make traffic flow more smoothly), water, sewerage over-extension, public health needs, and so on) whose nature requires you to heap far more in long-term obligations than you can ever hope to bear on yourself in order to make short-term ends meet.

That's the cancer at the heart of our system.

Why do you think every municipality is broke?

Now look at Philadelphia. What do you notice? The fundamentals are much stronger here. Lots of mixed-use recoups more in taxes, less of a need to drive drives down the need for parking lots. From the standpoint of financial fundamentals, Philadelphia is far stronger than Cherry Hill can ever hope to be (at least in its current incarnation)--because the city was mostly built-out before the implementation and institution of the suburban system.

[Jelly Roll]

far[/B] stronger than Cherry Hill can ever hope to be (at least in its current incarnation)--because the city was mostly built-out before the implementation and institution of the suburban system.

Cherry Hill is not broke and has plenty of commercial development to support it's financial fundamentals. It currently has an A+ bond rating on its general obligations and has a stable rating outlook. Add in the fact that the residents are also on average much wealthier then the average resident in Philadelphia and I do not think you are actually correct in saying the financial fundamentals are far stronger in Philadelphia. Also consider that Suburu, Pinnicle Foods, and TD Bank all have their headquarters in the town along with multiple other mid-sized regional businesses it is unlikely that the commercial aspect is leaving Cherry Hill.

It is probably also important to note that Cherry Hill has a tax collection rate up in the high 90%. I get that added benefits that the city has that are currently not present in Cherry Hill but to say the town is bankrupt or fiscally challenged is just not true. On a final note the current development in Cherry Hill is all midrise mixed-use developments and the zoning in multiple places allows for development up to 15 floors and it is possible to get bonuses ontop of that.

I would suggest picking on Gloucester Township or Washington Township if you want to really show how the suburbs do not work in NJ.

[Baloo]

I say we just blow up the entire Boulevard and start over. I don't think there's anymore editing or fixing you could do to that strip of road to make it any less dangerous, for both drivers and pedestrians. Between the divider that you have to cross between two parts of the road, the maniac drivers who treat it like a highway, and the general clusterf*** of a design that is Roosevelt Blvd. (Who designed this road to really just go right through residential areas?) there is not much more you can do to fix it.

Shut down the Boulevard for good, totally rehaul it and the surrounding area, and make something that is safer for drivers. The fact that it is the most accident-prone road in the nation says it all really.

Then we can start on some of those roads up in Bensalem, like Red Lion!

[MarketStEl]

I say we just blow up the entire Boulevard and start over. I don't think there's anymore editing or fixing you could do to that strip of road to make it any less dangerous, for both drivers and pedestrians. Between the divider that you have to cross between two parts of the road, the maniac drivers who treat it like a highway, and the general clusterf*** of a design that is Roosevelt Blvd. (Who designed this road to really just go right through residential areas?) there is not much more you can do to fix it.

Shut down the Boulevard for good, totally rehaul it and the surrounding area, and make something that is safer for drivers. The fact that it is the most accident-prone road in the nation says it all really.

Then we can start on some of those roads up in Bensalem, like Red Lion!

When work began on the Northeast Boulevard in 1911, the entire area was farmland. The road made the residential development possible, and the extension of rapid transit to Frankford in 1922 accelerated the pace of development as connecting bus and streetcar (later trackless trolley) routes fanned out from the Frankford terminals.

And while I endorse your suggestion on general principle, I can assure you that burying the inner drives as a freeway in a trench with rapid transit in its median really would fix just about all of the problems plaguing this road. The through traffic would divert to the freeway lanes just as it did on Vine Street downtown, and pedestrians would only have to worry about crossing six much less heavily trafficked lanes. Covering the trench would get rid of the resulting noise problem.

The only problem this wouldn't - and can't - solve is the distance from one side of the road to the other. It would still in all likelihood take two signal cycles for a pedestrian to cross the road in most places. But at least the pedestrian would have safe space to wait out the interval.

[mixiboi]

Draft plan for the Lower Northeast aims to address medical, transit needs of growing population | PlanPhilly: Planning Philadelphia's Future

Here are soem things that stood out to me:

Two of every five residents either lack health insurance or are enrolled in Medicaid, Litwin said, and the city Health Center on Cottman Avenue has a wait time of about three months.

“Equitable access to health care is an important issue,” here, he said, and so the plan is recommending several new city health centers be added, starting with one at the Frankford Transportation Center.

One reason for choosing this location is its accessibility, Litwin said. Frankford Transportation Center is not only the second-busiest El station, but it is also accessed by 16 bus routes and a trolley line. It can be accessed by more than 700,000 residents with a single-seat transit trip, Litwin said

Long-time North East activist Lorraine Brille said during the public comment session that she had a few concerns about the draft proposal. Earlier transportation studies have recommended that we “keep the Boulevard the way that it looks,” she said. And “we don't want rezoning, we can work within the existing zoning.” Brille kept her comments short as she had to hurry to another meeting.

Greenberger said planners should think more about the types of housing in the Lower Northeast, and if they are meeting all the needs of the increasing population. Perhaps other zoning changes are needed to accommodate other zoning types, he said. He agreed that a public transportation analysis is needed, saying that the northern end of the Northeast has many jobs, but residents without a car cannot currently get to them very easily. Litwin said nearly 30 percent of residents in the Lower Northeast do not have cars.

I love that "we" is always brought up when someone doesn't want change....

[MarketStEl]

I love that "we" is always brought up when someone doesn't want change....

Well, I certainly know who "we" are NOT.

And that "longtime activist" must have missed the City Planning Commission's last pass at the Northeast Spur (Boulevard subway), which I'm sure she opposes with every fiber of her being. That study, in 1993, recommended something like what I've been arguing for: the inner lanes turned into a depressed freeway with rapid transit in its median. In Fed-planning-speak, this was the "locally preferred alternative."

No doubt, she will tell you that this is what They wanted, and she will be right. Trouble is, They are the future, for better and for worse. We need to plan for Them, not for "us." Of course, this means we will be planning for her worst fear, the reason she (probably) fought the previous efforts to build the Northeast Spur (if she's a "longtime activist," I assume she was around for some of them).

Moving on: I'm now one of that 40 percent and that 30 percent, though I do have access to a car - and find that I do use it. I recently tried bicycling around the area to run some errands - I can't do major grocery shopping by bike, as I don't have the hardware needed to carry lots of stuff on my bike, but I can pick up some small stuff with my book bag - and found that while the streets, even those without bike lanes, are easy to navigate on two wheels, the businesses make no provision for much other than motor vehicles on their property. Pedestrians are an afterthought, and bicyclists not thought of at all.

This almost monocentric focus on the car is what makes this area less than satisfying as a place to live for me. I'd welcome changes in the landscape and built environment that would make it less autocentric. Castor Avenue, one of the focal points of the Lower Northeast plan, is wide enough that it can absorb taller buildings and more density without adverse impact - and the street would be more interesting to navigate on foot if it were developed to the guidelines of the new CMX 2.5 zoning, which the city proposes to implement along the street.

That said, that activist should get to know us sometime. She might be surprised to find that most of us don't bite and share many of her concerns.