Philadelphia 2035 (Columbia, Doylestown, Franklin: granite, advantage, Saturday)

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by timeEd32

Not Philly, but was in Ardmore earlier and parked in the Cricket Ave. lot and noticed lots of equipment being moved in and some work. Then I found this: Construction on One Ardmore Place to Commence on Friday, March 3rd - Destination Ardmore

So One Ardmore Place is officially underway.

Awesome news, about time.

[Duderino]

Another important piece of Western suburb news this week was the official start of the Paoli station upgrade, which has also been many years in the making:

Groundbreaking – finally – at Paoli Train Station

No one will accuse elected officials of acting too quickly on things like Ardmore Place and the Paoli ugrade, but better late than never. Also very excited about the breaking news of funding commitments for the I-95 cap park to the Delaware River.

Overall, very good news week for the area. This is exactly the kind of stuff that will continue to make the Philly metro overall very livable and sustainable in the years to come!

[Pine to Vine]

Originally Posted by timeed32

yeah, was reading about that - ridiculous. There's a serious breakdown in the system if a city can spend 50m and then another public entity can just say "nah, we need somewhere else." whether it's the police or another government org. They should be able to force someone to move in.

+5

[timeEd32]

Philly-owned Chinatown site draws dueling development visions

Let's replace a surface lot with .... a surface lot? I get that there are building restrictions, but surely they could do better.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by timeEd32

Philly-owned Chinatown site draws dueling development visions

Let's replace a surface lot with .... a surface lot? I get that there are building restrictions, but surely they could do better.

Two subway tunnels bisect the lot: the Ridge Spur subway follows the old right-of-way of Ridge Avenue, which used to cut diagonally across that block from its southeast corner to its northwest one, and underneath it is the four-track tunnel leading to the Commuter Tunnel's north portal (the reason why the Ridge Spur tunnel has vertical curvature at Chinatown station).

No heavy structures can be built atop either, which means that the middle pretty much has to remain a surface lot. They could have put in a landscaped park, however.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Two subway tunnels bisect the lot: the Ridge Spur subway follows the old right-of-way of Ridge Avenue, which used to cut diagonally across that block from its southeast corner to its northwest one, and underneath it is the four-track tunnel leading to the Commuter Tunnel's north portal (the reason why the Ridge Spur tunnel has vertical curvature at Chinatown station).

No heavy structures can be built atop either, which means that the middle pretty much has to remain a surface lot. They could have put in a landscaped park, however.

I understand the history of the lot, the phantom Ridge Avenue. But nonetheless, this subway station in the middle of the parking lot has always cracked me up. It is (or soon was, perhaps) a powerful symbol of poor planning.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by FamousBlueRaincoat

I understand the history of the lot, the phantom Ridge Avenue. But nonetheless, this subway station in the middle of the parking lot has always cracked me up. It is (or soon was, perhaps) a powerful symbol of poor planning.

I'm not sure how you can class this as a planning failure.

A street once ran through the block. A subway was built beneath the street. The city removed the street, but the subway remained. Then a second subway tunnel was run under the first one.

What was supposed to happen? Should they have dug up the subway?

To put the problem posed by the tunnel in perspective:

You know where the Vine Expressway crosses Broad Street, right?

That road runs through what was part of the mezzanine of Race-Vine subway station on the Broad Street Line.

It also runs across the top of the remainder of the tunnel that carries four subway tracks beneath it.

That tunnel couldn't support the weight of the road and the traffic either.

What PennDOT did was build a cable-stayed bridge that holds the road deck above the tunnel; the cables are hidden behind the retaining walls.

Neither tunnel in that block bounded by 8th, 9th, Race and Vine was built to support anything other than soil and grass or pavement above it. You'd have to build a bridge like the one PennDOT built to put a building over them.

I'm at a loss for alternatives to leaving the surface space open, either as parking or park. And it would seem to me that back in the 1970s, when planning for the Commuter Tunnel began, the options the city might have had for it were:

• Run it under one of the streets, which probably would have meant taking MORE properties than were taken for its midblock alignment, for you can't fit four tracks on one level beneath any north-south city street other than Broad;
  
• Leave Ridge Avenue in place for that block.

Any others you might be able to suggest?

[Pine to Vine]

Originally Posted by FamousBlueRaincoat

I understand the history of the lot, the phantom Ridge Avenue. But nonetheless, this subway station in the middle of the parking lot has always cracked me up. It is (or soon was, perhaps) a powerful symbol of poor planning.

You probably don't realize it, but many of your posts come across as snark.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

I'm not sure how you can class this as a planning failure.

Very poor choice of words on my part very early in the AM. As it wasn't bad planning at all.

It is bad urbanism though, and it's a potent symbol for bad urbanism, whatever the reasons for it existing is. It's a subway station in the middle of a surface parking lot - and has been for a long time.

Inside of a surface parking lot is probably the worst place for a subway station to exist (aside from the precipice of a cliff, etc.). And surrounding a subway station is the worst place for a surface parking lot to exist (in the downtown of the 5th largest city in America anyway).

But you're right - it not really the planning, it's the state the land has sat in for a long time.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by FamousBlueRaincoat

Inside of a surface parking lot is probably the worst place for a subway station to exist (aside from the precipice of a cliff, etc.). And surrounding a subway station is the worst place for a surface parking lot to exist (in the downtown of the 5th largest city in America anyway).

Agreed here, and it's probably the lack of intensive uses around it that has made Chinatown station the least-used rapid transit station on the SEPTA network. Not just the parking lot on top of it, but the many surface lots and blocks with only one or two buildings framing surface parking around this one too.

I wish the Philly.com story had included a site perspective of the Pennrose proposal too. The rendering shown in the article does indicate that they envision at least some of the unusable space serving as a pedestrian-oriented neighborhood amenity (the view is towards 8th Street and the condo development that recycled the former Metropolitan Hospital), but I would have liked to see an apples-to-apples comparative view of the two projects. Guess I'll need to attend the public presentation to get that.