Quote:
Originally Posted by ILovePhilly
We've discussed this before but I don't that that whatever is going on inside the building justifies poor street treatment. If you look through the designs you may find, as I found, that the treatment of the cycling and pedestrian environment is BAD.
They are proposing a driveway cut on South Street on the bridge where cyclists are already coming downhill with a 100 second light cycle. The cut is going to put right turning drivers right through the bike lane (on which bikers will have some speed going downhill). It's a deadly arrangement. And it will also jam up pedestrians. Having a light at 27th Street and about 150 feet west of there for the driveway cut will have a negative impact on traffic and on cyclists and pedestrians. (Me, personally, I don't care about negative impacts on traffic because I don't see what's so sacred about existing conditions). BUT the whole South Street bridge is considered part of the traffic flow for the on-off ramps for the Schuylkill Expressway so PennDOT and the Federal Government have to approve changes to traffic patterns. All of this is to say... if they did away with the curb cut on South Street I think they'd be in better position. The 40 is wildly inadequate. SEPTA and the City can't thrive on buses like the 40. I hate the 40. But rather than this curb cut Penn could run a 30th Street shuttle for workers to cut down on the need for driving/parking, for example.
The application also says that the plaza will allow bike/ped access to the trail after it's built south of South St. This is great! But I didn't see anywhere on the application that a bike could access the plaza (it was all steps) and the access is listed as "future". I'm not sure that access is critical as the South street bridge will have ramps up and running this spring but people may not want to deal with the 100 second light cycle to walk out the north side of the building or (worse) the north side access may be automobile only. They also aren't providing bike parking (specifically says no bike parking) which is just a textbook example of lacking sensitivity to their own needs. The new Comcast tower will have 175 bike parking spots and they had to keep adding spots at the current building to meet demand. It's just not forward thinking to make the whole thing automobile oriented. I think that was the basis of the suburbanesque complaint.
Also, as much as I love their little promenade overhanging the CSX tracks I can tell you that will never happen in ten million years. There will be air rights issues and CSX will be very protective now that they use those lines much more frequently for their oil train shipments.
Honestly aside from the South Street curb cut and the lack of bike sensitivity I like this proposal. They could put the curb cut for the garage off of Schuylkill Avenue or 27th Street and be in better shape.
I don't just like economic development and tall buildings; I like context and urbanity. It's possible to be critical of elements of this proposal without being some sort of impossible-to-please. This proposal could be better but that doesn't mean that overall it's a bad prospect.
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Well said. The reason site design is so important is because the pedestrian friendliness and intimate feeling of Center City are what truly set Philadelphia apart from the pack of American cities in terms of urban quality IMO. As much as we all love tall buildings and want Philly to have lots, lots more of them, and regain and bolster its position as a leading world city, the city needs to realize its uniqueness and play it up. With the burgeoning population of Center City, the primary focus on getting people to and from work should be public transit, walking, and biking.
This site design belongs in Houston. Or Dallas. Or Raleigh-Durham, because it is so auto-centric. Ugly, soul-less suburb-cities all of them (my apologies to anyone from those places). A great example of the urbanity we should strive for is the new apartment development at 1213 Walnut, or of course the new Comcast building. No parking garages or surface parking, limited or non existent curb cuts.
Hopefully Chop can do a little better in the future!
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