Description and Details

Philly’s Chi­na­town has been divid­ed since 1991 after the com­ple­tion of the below-street-lev­el Vine Street Express­way, or I‑676,  which sep­a­rat­ed the Chi­na­town and Chi­na­town North neigh­bor­hoods. This led to an increased social and eco­nom­ic dis­con­nect between the com­mu­ni­ties and has height­ened con­cerns sur­round­ing traf­fic safe­ty, air pol­lu­tion, and lack of recre­ation­al out­door space in the area. Since the 1960s, the express­way has been opposed by com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, lead­ing to engage­ment in neigh­bor­hood stud­ies on how to revi­tal­ize the seg­re­gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty. The past thir­ty years of dis­con­nect have result­ed in enough com­mu­ni­ty sup­port to put forth a new path. 

 In 2023, the city of Philadel­phia, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Philadel­phia Chi­na­town Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, is start­ing a project called the “Chi­na­town Stitch”. This project was made pos­si­ble through a new grant from the U.S. Depart­ment of Transportation’s Recon­nect­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Pilot Pro­gram. This pro­gram was cre­at­ed by the Bipar­ti­san Infra­struc­ture Law which aims to pro­vide fund­ing to com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by large con­struc­tion projects that have cre­at­ed eco­nom­ic and social dis­par­i­ty. This $1.8 mil­lion grant will help accel­er­ate the plan­ning process of eval­u­at­ing ways to recon­nect the Chi­na­town com­mu­ni­ty with a cap to offer poten­tial use for parks and com­mer­cial or res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment. A cap could be a bridge, plat­form, or a dif­fer­ent struc­ture that would meet com­mu­ni­ty needs. Sim­i­lar projects were accom­plished in cities like Boston where the Rose Kennedy Green­way was built and cre­at­ed a 17-mile lin­ear park through sev­er­al communities. 

Plans for the Chi­na­town Stitch will first begin with a con­cept study that will have two phas­es where pub­lic feed­back will be essen­tial in the deci­sion-mak­ing process and ulti­mate design pro­pos­als. The first phase begins in April 2023 and includes com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings where pub­lic input will be sought to devel­op the project vision and estab­lish goals based on com­mu­ni­ty wants. The design team will seek input on pre­ferred loca­tions, types of cap­ping, and desired uses of the capped area. Phase two will com­pile the pub­lic feed­back to devel­op designs and choose poten­tial loca­tions. Through­out phase two, pub­lic feed­back will be request­ed to ensure project approach­es are align­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty goals estab­lished in phase one. Total plan­ning project costs are esti­mat­ed to be $4 mil­lion, and fund­ing will include the RCP grant with an addi­tion­al $2.2 mil­lion sourced from the city of Philadel­phia, Pen­nDOT, and pri­vate donors and foun­da­tions. These funds will be used for orga­niz­ing pub­lic engage­ment, events, plan­ning, engi­neer­ing con­sult­ing costs, and effort put forth toward addi­tion­al con­struc­tion grant appli­ca­tions. Over­all, con­struc­tion is antic­i­pat­ed to begin in 2028, depend­ing on fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and design goals. 

CEE sub­jects: Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Sus­tain­able Infra­struc­ture, Trans­porta­tion Engineering

Discussion Questions

  • How can we reimag­ine trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture to be more inclu­sive in com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tiv­i­ty? What pur­pose does trans­porta­tion serve in a com­mu­ni­ty? With our cur­rent trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture, are we meet­ing com­mu­ni­ty needs?
  • If you were part of the engi­neer­ing con­sult­ing team for this project what would you want to con­sid­er in your designs? How could you ver­i­fy that com­mu­ni­ty goals are being met?

References

Post Views: 135