How a Philadelphia Road Redesign Went Off the Rails
A long-planned reconfiguration of one of the city’s most dangerous streets hit a snag when concerns about gentrification and community input emerged.
More than a year after a final design was announced, a project to repave and redesign Washington Avenue in Philadelphia was put on hold to solicit more public input.
Photo: Jared Brey/Bloomberg CityLab
Philadelphia’s gridded streets are straight enough that if you stood in the middle of Washington Avenue, you could almost see clear from the Schuylkill River to the Delaware, two and a half miles east. Of course, if you stood in the middle of Washington Avenue, you’d also be putting your life in peril. Just getting across it is dangerous enough.
A busy arterial that runs through a dozen South Philly neighborhoods, the street is lined, at various points, with old rowhouses and new apartment buildings, strip malls, parking lots, breweries, bakeries, auto body shops, and industrial sellers of marble and granite. It has two lanes for parking, two fading bike lanes, and five lanes for automobile traffic. It’s also on the city’s high-injury network; at least four people died and six were seriously injured in traffic collisions there between 2012 and 2018.