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Davelah, apologies if I glossed over any part of your post where you addressed this, but short of tearing down, starting over, and getting a variance--not to mention, permission to tear up a bunch of city sidewalk--how does one go about creating setbacks within preexisting rowhomes?
You remark that setbacks add vibracy, but that's an odd and innacurate word choice. Whether or not you think it's pretty, a tiny sliver of green at the front of a home doesn't make a neighborhood more or less lively or bustling. As far as my subjective opinions go, I think the 16th and Brandywine setbacks stick out like sore thumbs. The ones on 16th and Green are better, but even those don't jive with the neighborhood fabric. Simply put, I don't think they really belong in hyper-urban neighborhoods. You have your subjective opinion, and that's mine.
Now, I think that setbacks and rowhomes can get along swimmingly in further-lying residential areas. These areas can still be dense. In my corner of wild, wonderful Northwest Philadelphia, where the population density nears 12,000 people per square mile, the rowhomes do have setbacks of varying degrees. However, rowhomes are on such tiny lots as is, and I'd rather have a private green space in back that I can enjoy than a pretty one in front that may look good to passersby but serves no practical purpose.
Here's a stretch of rowhomes not far from my own. I happen to think these setbacks are pretty and fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. The only problem is that because of these setbacks, there's no private green space whatsoever. My wife and I were actually thinking about buying a home like that, but the "concrete jungle" (to use one of your terms) in back was a dealbreaker.
I was CAREFUL to use IN PHILLY EXAMPLES. As to not ruffle feathers that using another city for example, might bring in reply. I found a PHILLY ---> new infill block. The developer in a more inner block that had a narrow sidewalk. Chose to LITTERALLY move the new rows INWARD more then a couple feet. (what type of variance was needed I do not know) I just know IT WAS BUILT AND LOOKS GREAT. Better then to not have done it and I'd say is adding value too. I know it isn't more suburban then not... Chestnut Hill.
I certainly feel it was not waste of space. But I do see it is a better use of it. The one block nearby ALREADY HAD A WIDER SIDEWALK as a more main street. What kind of variance the builder needed? I don't know? But they certainly did get it and did not have to move homes inward from the original sidewalk, if it had a tree-canopy too. BETTER YET. I did note trees across the street show in streetview,
Then noting other examples of other streets that gain New Philly infill or Restoring and gutting old stock Philly rows. (they put big bucks into them too) YOU act like the expense to take a portion of the sidewalk is extreme and a budget would have it prohibited? Not buying it. I'm not sure a variance to take a portion of a bit wider sidewalk is a major hassle? But I don't know. But the result is clear. Don't take much space either to trim it with a total new revamped look.
I said nothing extreme I felt or the price prohibited. It is done in Philly as I showed. I see no reason old-stock rows could not add a couple feet green more then planters alone? Especially those with a bit more a sidewalk to begin with. Just I WISH IT HAPPENED MUCH MORE with New infill especially. That was all. Again... William Penn I believe would approve.
I was CAREFUL to use IN PHILLY EXAMPLES. As to not ruffle feathers that using another city for example, might bring in reply. I found a PHILLY ---> new infill block. The developer in a more inner block that had a narrow sidewalk. Chose to LITTERALLY move the new rows INWARD more then a couple feet. (what type of variance was needed I do not know) I just know IT WAS BUILT AND LOOKS GREAT. Better then to not have done it and I'd say is adding value too. I know it isn't more suburban then not... Chestnut Hill.
I certainly feel it was not waste of space. But I do see it is a better use of it. The one block nearby ALREADY HAD A WIDER SIDEWALK as a more main street. What kind of variance the builder needed? I don't know? But they certainly did get it and did not have to move homes inward from the original sidewalk, if it had a tree-canopy too. BETTER YET. I did note trees across the street show in streetview,
Then noting other examples of other streets that gain New Philly infill or Restoring and gutting old stock Philly rows. (they put big bucks into them too) YOU act like the expense to take a portion of the sidewalk is extreme and a budget would have it prohibited? Not buying it. I'm not sure a variance to take a portion of a bit wider sidewalk is a major hassle? But I don't know. But the result is clear. Don't take much space either to trim it with a total new revamped look.
I said nothing extreme I felt or the price prohibited. It is done in Philly as I showed. I see no reason old-stock rows could not add a couple feet green more then planters alone? Especially those with a bit more a sidewalk to begin with. Just I WISH IT HAPPENED MUCH MORE with New infill especially. That was all. Again... William Penn I believe would approve.
I'm completely lost. It might help if you broke my post down into quoted sub-portions and responded, point by point, so that I know what you're addressing.
How do you propose I get to my place of employment in New Jersey?
I'm not advocating for people to give up their cars, many in Philadelphia still need them, and with the majority of our employment centers in the suburbs many do not have a choice but to drive. NYC is very different because the transit system is much more connected than Philadelphia's.
However, the automobile should NOT be the main topic of conversation when development proposals are presented to the community, and the issue of street cleaning facing backlash because people don't want to move their cars is ridiculous. Having a car is not a privilege it is a choice. I should tell this to that a** of a Council President Darrell Clarke whose vision of the city is a ghetto version of the suburbs, which really doesn't help Philadelphia achieve anything but backwards planning.
The city also tore down some of its finest architecture throughout the 20th century in order to construct parking garages and parking lots, which makes me cringe.
And while I do agree I don't like taking the Philadelphia subway, the Regional Rail is 100% safe and usually reliable and thousands of families from all over the region take the train into the city rather than drive. Its easier, more relaxing, generally faster, AND you don't have to worry about parking.
How's it a problem? I love the freedom my car allows me. Why should I wait for a bus or walk to the subway in the cold, rain and heat if I don't have to? Why should I be smashed in with strangers on public transit that span the spectrum if I don't have to? Why should I put my personal well being at risk?
I see the bicyclists on Delaware Ave, heading back to Fishtown from wherever it is they work and play ... sure, it's nice when the weather cooperates, but they never look happy in inclement weather. It sounds cool to say "I bike to work!," but I'd bet most of them would rather be in a toasty car when it's cold, a dry car when it's raining and a cold car when it's hot and humid. I get it if you can't afford a vehicle, but if you can ...
We own three vehicles between the two of us, with the third as a backup for when our regular rides are in the shop. The backup will become my everyday when my regular finally dies.
My mini-post was sort of tongue-in-cheek but I didn't use any emojis so ...
I grew up in the suburbs where people drive everywhere. I got my driver's license at 16 just like most kids did in the '60s. My dad had a car when my immediate family still lived in the city so I was always around cars and drivers. My mom, who also grew up in the 'burbs, learned to drive as a teen too in the 1930s.The first major purchase I made as a young person was a car and I drove for about 50 years.
So I understand the view of "freedom" wrt car ownership. But I'm also an advocate of mass transit.
Why did I stop driving? One. I'm pretty egotistical and didn't want anyone trying to tell me to stop driving as has to happen with ornery olsters who are no longer physically capable of driving. Two. I had pretty much stopped using my car because I was no longer making frequent trips to the suburbs after my mom died. Three. The cost of car ownership. Insurance, maintenance, registration fees, parking. Four. I like walking even with snow on the ground. Five. I never care now about traffic reports. I-95, Vine St Exp, Schuylkill Exp? Don't give a rat's ass about them now.
And while I do agree I don't like taking the Philadelphia subway, the Regional Rail is 100% safe and usually reliable and thousands of families from all over the region take the train into the city rather than drive. Its easier, more relaxing, generally faster, AND you don't have to worry about parking.
Sounds like you have forgotten about last year's regional rail debacle with the broken under- carriage mess.
What problem are you expecting on the subway here? A lot of stuff happens with MTA in NYC. Trains not running. Delays. People masturbating. Crazy people. Maybe you haven't been in NYC long enough to have had these experiences yet.
If you were working in New Jersey or Delaware, why would you move to Manayunk, though (where, with the exception of a few doorman buildings, parking's no picnic, by the way)? Better you should pay for garage (or even surface lot ) parking and not needlessly remove yourself from I-95 and/or the bridges.
Ughhh, finals are getting to me lol! I would probably live in Pennsport or Bella Vista if I end up being employed in NJ or DE. That way, I can take public transportation or drive if deemed necessary. I would live in Manayunk if I end up working in Conshy, Norristown, or KOP. Unfortunately, many finance positions ar located in the suburbs, so I have to factor that in. I'm also looking at working in NYC and living in Philly, making the daily commute via Acela.
I'm also looking at working in NYC and living in Philly, making the daily commute via Acela.
You better be willing to shell out a fortune for that. Not to mention long commute times each way. If you work in finance and can afford to go back and forth on Acela, you might as well just live in Manhattan.
My bowling league is in south Philly and we have had discussions about parking. The one lady on my team has 3 kids, and they all have cars (for a total of 4 cars in her household). I ask her why they all need cars, and she said they need them to get to work (IN Philly!) and to school and to run errands (groceries, after-school stuff, etc). I said, why can't they take the bus or Septa? She just shook her head and said no, they would just rather drive. The aversion to public transit and the attachment to cars seems to be passed down from generation to generation (at least from the Philly lifer to their kids) and the aversion to cars and optimism for public transit seems to come from the non-Philly natives.
I once attended a zoning meeting in Hawthorne where the residents threw plenty of brickbats at Bart Blatstein for proposing an 1100-odd-unit apartment tower with retail at its base and parking for about 450 cars. Many of the residents said that two cars were a necessity to perform basic errands.
In Hawthorne! Really? When I lived in the Gayborhood, I ran just about all of my errands on foot or by public transit. Hawthorne's the next neighborhood to the south.
BTW, I now live well away from the Gayborhood, but I still run just about all of my errands on foot or by public transit and book a car share for the few that I can't accommodate in that fashion. More on this below.
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Originally Posted by ElijahAstin
I like taking public transit to/from work and while in the Greater Center City subway/trolley footprint, but I enjoy having a car for after work and on the weekends. FWIW, I'd have zero problem moving my vehicle for street cleaning.
Of course, things are much different in the wild, wonderful Northwest, where parking is usually free and plentiful. If my wife and I lived in Center City, we'd probably be a one car household instead of two.
Depending on where you live in Northwest Philly, you could probably still get by on one car. But you'd have to carefully situate yourself - just as you would if you live in the 'burbs, work in Center City and don't want to drive in to work. The key is finding a location convenient to public transit and within walking distance of a supermarket. Granted, such locations aren't all that abundant in the Northwest. I live in one, and have a very reasonable rent, but I suspect many of you reading this wouldn't want to make the choices I made - but I will also touch on this below.
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Originally Posted by BK_PHL_DEL
Spoiler alert: the gmaps link is to Tulip St in Fishtown. Fishtown DEFINITELY needs a LOT more trees. There are so many blocks with barren sidewalks. Wish I could just get a jackhammer, drill out some sidewalk, and plant some trees. Avocado trees or fig trees, can you imagine!
Forgot to comment on this post.
I've come to notice that there appears to be a linear relationship between the tree canopy and the socioeconomic status of a neighborhood: the richer, the greener.
In preparing a post on the city's districts on another thread, I ran across the stat that Southwest Philly has the lowest tree canopy of any part of the city: less than one percent. It's also the most uniformly low-income district of the city: there's a small bit of affluence at its northern tip and a 1960s middle-class housing development at its southern end, but everything between these two is low-income - not even North Philly is as uniformly impoverished.
And residents in poorer neighborhoods often see street trees as more nuisance than benefit thanks to their maintenance needs and tendency to break up sidewalks with their roots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2002 Subaru
How's it a problem? I love the freedom my car allows me. Why should I wait for a bus or walk to the subway in the cold, rain and heat if I don't have to? Why should I be smashed in with strangers on public transit that span the spectrum if I don't have to? Why should I put my personal well being at risk?
Your point about commuting to New Jersey is IMO a better defense of owning a car in the city than your other rationales, and frankly, after four years living where I do now, my attitudes about status anxiety and safety have simply been reinforced.
I "put my personal well-being at risk" every time I walk out the front door of my East Germantown house after dark. I've seen the instant memorials at either end of the block I live on - multiple ones, in the case of the end of the block where I catch the buses that take me to the subway into Center City, thanks largely to the stop 'n' go (a "deli" that appears bereft of lunchmeat but sells lots of beer) located at that corner. (It now has signs in its window warning patrons that they will be fined by the cops if they drink outside the store.) Beyond one woman who panhandles from time to time, I've never gotten hassled by the people hanging out in front of that store, though; in fact, one woman who sees me pass by regularly is sort of fond of me: "You must be really busy - you're always on the go," she said to me once. And on another occasion, after an apartment across the street from me caught fire, killing its occcupant, while I was out of town, she stopped me when I returned to let me know that she had made sure someone stopped by my place to make sure there were batteries for my smoke detector. (Fortunately, I don't have to worry about that because it's hard-wired.)
And the friends I invite up to visit me - black and white alike - have yet to report they've had any problem in getting to or from my place. I do walk my guests to the bus stop if they leave late at night just to make sure - I may believe that fear plays way too big a role in governing our behavior, but I'm not so crazy as not to want to take precautions for the safety of my guests.
And if I lived on the parallel street one block north, none of this would be a concern, for it's a very attractive and well-maintained middle-middle class residential block. And I could catch the same buses I catch from where I live now.
Quote:
I see the bicyclists on Delaware Ave, heading back to Fishtown from wherever it is they work and play ... sure, it's nice when the weather cooperates, but they never look happy in inclement weather. It sounds cool to say "I bike to work!," but I'd bet most of them would rather be in a toasty car when it's cold, a dry car when it's raining and a cold car when it's hot and humid. I get it if you can't afford a vehicle, but if you can ...
We own three vehicles between the two of us, with the third as a backup for when our regular rides are in the shop. The backup will become my everyday when my regular finally dies.
And this is what I don't get about the attitudes of a lot of the defenders of the status quo.
No, I don't think I'd have a smile on my face if I were riding my bike in the snow either, and I do indeed ride it less in cold weather than warm. But most of the bike commuters - who are on the whole whiter and better off than the public transit riders as a whole - do have choices, and they've chosen this. If they shared your attitude as expressed above, they probably would be driving, but they're not. That you can't seem to see this as a rational choice mystifies me. It's clearly not the choice you or I would make, but there are people out there who make it.
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Originally Posted by PhilliesPhan2013
The car isn't necessarily the problem; instead, the problem lies within certain residents and politicians who believe that parking is a right rather than a privilege. There is no way that a dense, urban, walkable city such as Philadelphia should alter its urban form to please motorists (especially those who don't even live in the city). Historic buildings should not be demolished for surface parking lots and urban highways. I-676 and I-95 are two examples of altering the urban fabric to accommodate motorists, which has led to a disconnection of Center City from the Delaware River waterfront and North Philly (this is being mended west of Broad). Center City is already the 2nd best urban core in the United States, and it will only become better once every surface parking lot is occupied with a building of sufficient density.
Extending the Vine Expressway eastward from 15th Street was an improvement on the 10-lane surface arterial that had been there. That wide swath was bulldozed through the city in 1954-55, and crossing it was much more fear-inducing than crossing six lanes of traffic that are light most of the day, then a trench that carries most of the cars.
Honestly, I could care less if someone owns a car in the Far Northeast or parts of the Northwest, such as Roxborough; however, changing the urban fabric for cars can be a problem in the older, more urban parts of the city. If living in a dense, urban city is something that one desires, then car ownership may not be for them. There are plenty of alternatives, such as walking, biking, public transportation, and car-share services. Suburbanites who wish for parking should park at a Regional Rail station and take the train into the city. Suburbanites who want to change the city to accommodate cars are the worst kind of people, as they do not live in Philly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2002 Subaru
Yeah, but the city needs those suburbanites with their cars, they bring a lot of money into the city. I doubt many of them would come if they had to take SEPTA.
Actually, those suburbanites who live near SEPTA's rail network do use it to get into the city. This paper prepared by the Center City District a few years ago notes that in neighborhoods along Regional Rail lines, more than half the residents who live in them but work downtown use transit to get to work.
It seems to me that you have an insufficient understanding of the class character of the various modes of public transportation (and you're not alone in this regard). Commuter rail, rapid transit and buses all have distinctly different class profiles, though they overlap. The mothers with the baby strollers blocking the aisles are a common sight on the buses, less so on rapid transit, and nonexistent on Regional Rail. The suits-to-sweats ratio overwhelmingly favors suits on Regional Rail, while on the buses, it's the opposite except at peak hours, when it's close to 1:1 (or 1:1:1 suits/sweats/uniforms) or even reversed in some gentrifying neighborhoods. On the subway, as with the buses, it varies according to time of day, but you're more likely to run into suits at all hours on the subway than on your local bus line in a lower-income neighborhood.
And there are things that you can do on public transit that you simply can't do behind the wheel of a car. Like read or write, for instance (people working on laptops or tablets are a common sight on Regional Rail). Or run into interesting potential contacts. I didn't know that this person was riding the same Route 18 bus I was until we both got off at Olney and went down into the subway, where I noticed the PHL pin on his lapel as we went down.
Here's what happened next. His employer also took notice of the encounter, sharing this recollection in a post to its page that was headed "Public Transportation + PHL Pin = Connections."
As I said in my post, try doing THIS from behind the wheel.
(FWIW, I take a dim view of the status anxiety that fuels a lot of the avoidance behavior I note among certain types of people. I tend to tell people, "If you want to live car-free in this town, learn the buses." It's a necessity because this city got only one-sixth of all the subways it had planned to build, but it's a reality we have to deal with, so rather than lament what we don't have, I at least adjust to what we do have. (The photo that leads off this article I shot just before boarding the bus in the picture.)
Last edited by MarketStEl; 04-27-2017 at 10:03 AM..
Sounds like you have forgotten about last year's regional rail debacle with the broken under- carriage mess.
What problem are you expecting on the subway here? A lot of stuff happens with MTA in NYC. Trains not running. Delays. People masturbating. Crazy people. Maybe you haven't been in NYC long enough to have had these experiences yet.
Oh bother, it always goes to other cities have issues too. Even lessening suburban rail as to defend Philly's. You can't boost Philly by merely noting other cities or its own suburbs have issues too and highlighting them with a virtual picture drawn LOL. Oh you missed the smell of urine too by NYC subways. It does show degrees of a complex too?
Any attitude as we are good just as we are.... is the kind that might keep a Philly as Second Rate. Of course it does not need be.
You better be willing to shell out a fortune for that. Not to mention long commute times each way. If you work in finance and can afford to go back and forth on Acela, you might as well just live in Manhattan.
Not at the current price differentials between comparable neighborhoods in Greater Center City and Manhattan - you'll still save a bundle even after adding on the cost of the monthly Acela pass.
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It does show degrees of a complex too?
