A Waterfront to Drive Development

In the city of Philadelphia, there is much discussion in regard to the stretch of Interstate Highway that lines one of the city's most significant natural resources.  Interstate 95 travels from the International Airport to Torresdale in Philadelphia, but has a low-utilized stretch from the Walt Whitman Bridge to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge that created a tough to penetrate barrier between the downtown area and the Delaware River waterfront when it was completed forty years ago.

Today, the road has no more than two decades left of possible useful life but reconstruction will likely need to start in ten years.  This is why the city needs to act now.  PennDOT has little interest in leading the way on removing the expressway, and why should they?  Their interests are in city planning and development; that, however, is the job of the municipal government.

Rather than addressing the benefits of removing a large, ugly, and dirty barrier from Philadelphia, I want to address a few concerns:

First, it cannot be overlooked that the current Delaware Expressway is signed as Interstate 95, the most traveled major interstate in the country.  However, this statistic is not quite valid in Philadelphia.  When traveling from anywhere south of Wilmington, Delaware to anywhere north of Trenton, New Jersey, the New Jersey Turnpike is both the most direct and highly-used route option.   Even the signage implores drivers to choose this route, making Interstate 95 in Pennsylvania nationally significant in numbering only.

Second, and nonetheless, somewhere around 100,000 vehicles per day use the stretch of interstate between the Whitman and Franklin Bridges.  This traffic does have to go somewhere.  This solution is also simple.  By building the current Schuylkill Expressway south from it's current "left turn" at Packer Avenue to the current Interstate 95, as was originally planned, traffic could be routed from the current southbound I-95 onto the Vine Expressway, southbound Schuylkill and new alignment to the airport and points south.  This could even lead to the eventual removal of Interstate 95 all of the way from the Ben Franklin Bridge to the Navy Yard.  For more localized traffic, Columbus Boulevard could be widened, transit added, and the remaining traffic could use the new at-grade link between the bridges.

Last, this will no doubt be expensive.  However, it is certainly worth noting that Interstate 95 will need rebuilding if it is to remain and that will cost even more money.  Currently there is a plan to build transit along the Delaware Riverfront, but how well will that be used if residents are required to cross, even if safely and attractively, blocks of parkland from their homes to access it?  Building underutilized transit is a waste of taxpayer money as well.    

If Philadelphians want a vibrant and meaningful Delaware River Waterfront, Interstate 95, as it stands today, is your biggest obstacle.  This idea will lead to lower spending of taxpayer funds than would otherwise be necessary, more prime development land, a more desirable city, better use of a natural asset for the city, and a city that is once again about people in its core, rather than cars.