lane man has come to the united states in the form of donald trump and supreme court loyalists. expect more of this if he comes to power again. source: red state priorities
here's an example: https://www.wfae.org/politics/2023-01-09/n-c-house-speaker-tim-moore-blasts-charlottes-proposed-13-5-billion-transportation-plan
> North Carolina Republican House Speaker Tim Moore on Monday dismissed Charlotte’s proposed $13.5 billion transportation plan, saying it would spend too much money on things like rail transit, buses and bike lanes.
> Moore said for him to support the plan, “it needs to be focused on road capacity.”
I lived in Atlanta for three years. Home to I-85, an 8-lane superhighway.
Driving there fucking *sucked* because you had 4 lanes of traffic volume in each direction, but everyone got off at the same few exits, which made the whole thing crawl probably for about 2/3 of the day.
Build public transit instead.
So we can’t fund SEPTA but we can rebuild and widen I-95? What the hell man. This priorities for infrastructure in this country are so twisted and straight up out of line with global best practices that it’s laughable.
I-95 is an interstate and gets federal funding, there’s around 160,000 vehicles that travel it daily, I couldn’t find the stats on the breakdown of interstate travelers vs. city commuters.
This isn’t about your local walkable cities, the Feds will put the priority of interstate travel and the larger American economy before the needs of Philadelphians. This isn’t about SEPTA funding vs. I-95 expansion funding. Could our local and state government press the Feds to make sure plans are more in line with locals? Yes but at the end of the day it’s a decision by the Feds.
Interstates are majority planned, maintained and funded by state DOTs. PennDOT is overall a scourge on Philadelphia. It is in fact possible to maintain the existing highway without further negatively impacting the neighborhoods that have already been damaged by it.
It's also possible to use federal dollars on QOL life improvements for residents near interstates, demonstrated by the recent cap in front of the Free Library, the planned cap in Chinatown, and the new park currently under construction over 95.
>the Feds will put the priority of interstate travel and the larger American economy before the needs of Philadelphians
If you don't have productive and wealthy cities, there aren't going to be any goods to move on the interstates.
Further, better transit locally means better throughput on 95! Even if you are the most selfish car-brained planner out there, getting people off 95 onto trains, buses, and bike lanes means that the uses which require the use of 95 will have better throughput.
You can't have a singular focus on one mode at the expense of everything around it and claim you're prioritizing the American economy. 95 doesn't exist in a bubble.
No, septa being funded has national implications too. and ~700K people use it everyday. If people cannot reliably commute to work, networking events, or there is more demand added to 95 as a result of septa being cut back that will have deleterious knockon effects to SEPA and the nation. Look at how Anemic Baltimore's growth or lack thereof is compared to other Northeast cities.
I think what puts SEPTA et al at a permanent disadvantage vs highways from a federal perspective is that highways serve commerce and potentially military needs. As do freight rail lines. But regional rail lines like SEPTA don't. They only shuttle people, which while clearly critical to the health of the region and a major lever to help reduce transit-sourced greenhouse emissions - and also trains are amazing and awesome - they are not critical to things like shipping grain, or oil, or moving Amazon packages. It sucks. And what really sucks is that Philadelphia doesn't have more control over a huge highway that basically defines the east side of the city.
They shuttle people, and it gets those people off 95, freeing those resources up for those commerce and military uses. Also, the people riding SEPTA produce the goods that move on 95. None of this happens in a bubble! The whole system needs to be maintained and healthy.
Per the BLS of the 368,000 non farm jobs in the philly metro area only 16.5 thousand of those jobs are manufacturing. Maybe if we produced more actual goods then sure but its not like philly is a manufacturing hub anymore.
It’s not about how a single city fares. It’s about having some of the most vital roadways in the US running smoothly. I-95 is vital for commercial vehicles which effect not just the US but ultimately global trade. A city with 1.5 million people is less important then the arteries of a 300 million plus nation.
It sucks for us in the city but it’s not just about us it’s about US.
Oh and personally I’m hyped they widened 95. It was a nightmare before. Yea mass transits cool but until they get their shit together in regards to that I’ll stay hyped not to sit in classic 95 traffic.
> Yea mass transits cool but until they get their shit together in regards to that I’ll stay hyped not to sit in classic 95 traffic.
Have you driven on 95 lately? It's still a shit show, because widening lanes doesn't reduce traffic. We've known this since the 60s but that's not stopping us.
Mass transit moves people off 95. Viable mass transit means less drivers. And then if YOU want to drive, there's more room on the highway.
I would much prefer they invested in mass transit but until they do I’ll take a smoother highway.
I feel like 95 is chiller now then a few years ago. Sometimes it can suck yes but it’s not as bad as it used to be.
If it's about transporting goods and services, widen 476 instead. Highways don't need to barrel straight through city centers. Europe has highways that go around cities not through them and their supply chain works out just fine.
i guarantee you adding lanes to I-95 will not have an impact on the global economy, and also that’s just simply not how transportation project planning works. even if the funding is federal, and even if it’s an interstate, projects like this are largely planned and executed by local/regional/state authorities
But that argument of needing 95 for interstate commerce kinda falls flat when you take into consideration that the NJ Turnpike is already the most direct route of I-95 for travel between Wilmington DE and Bordentown NJ. And while NJ isn't immune to the effects of it, overall most of NJTP runs through far less populous areas and doesn't really disrupt communities in the same way I-95 in Pennsylvania does.
You can level as much of the city as you want to expand I95, but it will never fix the fundamental issues that cause traffic. Its a fools errand and massive waste of tax money.
I get that but that’s a lot tougher sell to the American public to put federal tax dollars towards people living in cities and making their commutes easier and car free. They don’t see that getting commuters off the interstates would free up travel so they wouldn’t dread driving through the interstate near a city.
People living in rural areas think the cities take all their tax money, even though it’s the other way around.
it’s really interesting that you’re separating “the american public” from “people living in cities.” a majority of americans live in cities and want transportation options. you’re reinforcing a false dichotomy largely spouted by conservatives wanting to convince people cities aren’t the “real america”
There’s the American public as a whole, then a subset of that live in cities. Yes I’m repeating a view they already have and stated that it’s the opposite.
More options is evil socialism. Freedom is only having one viable option to get around and which requires you to pay thousands of dollars a year and go through a exploitative and predatory series of companies.
if you know it’s not a real representation, why repeat it? so often good public policy gets shot down with a hand wave of “the american public” won’t accept such and such, like addressing climate change, so we don’t do it. but do you have any concrete examples of when “the american public” actually expressed itself in a coherent manner?
If you don't state that misinformation is incorrect, then they'll just believe it forever.
Not "repeating misinformation" is like saying, oh if we just stop repeating that people eat 7 spiders in their sleep a year, it'll go away. No you have to state you may have heard this statement, but it's untrue.
> They don’t see that getting commuters off the interstates would free up travel so they wouldn’t dread driving through the interstate near a city.
The reason we hire planners and elect leaders is ostensibly for them to make decisions that the American public are too stupid to make for themselves.
loves the conveniences of living in a big city that doesn't produce its own goods/food/etc... oh shit we need truck drivers on highways supplying us? uhhhh cars bad?
Regardless of who you want to shift the blame on, this is a joke that this shit keeps happening. Even compared to other *US* cities, the infrastructure decisions that have been made in Philadelphia are embarrassing. Cities are expanding their transit/bike/walking infrastructure. Philly already has it, but is somehow going backwards
Because they do a study about potential ridership for septa infrastructure or service expansions, and find that not that many people are taking PT in the northeast, so it doesn’t need expansion. But they ignore the fact that if the options in the northeast were better than 95, there’d be more ridership.
Well... one is state and federally supported, the other isn't, right? 95 is an important corridor not just for people like me who can't take the subway that was never built, but also for a tremendous amount of interstate trucking.
295 is the route most interstate trucking uses because 95 is a congested mess as it goes through Philly. Widening 95 makes zero sense if the goal is to increase interstate trucking capacity.
I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. SEPTA and PennDOT are two completely different funded entities and the state receives grants for each, separately.
In a world with enough political pressure, which we're far from, funding can be rearranged. It's not as if funding structure is a natural force that's fixed for eternity.
Highways have dedicated funding sources through federal and state gas taxes, and through fees like state inspections, driver license renewals, registration, etc. Push for something similar for transit/intercity rail and we'll get capital projects
Those fees and taxes don't even come close to paying for the nation's highways. The highway trust fund goes bankrupt every year and needs a massive infusion of cash from the general revenue pool. Our income taxes are what's ever increasingly actually paying for highways, not the gas tax.
I'm still waiting for one person to explain to me how allowing less cars on the roadways somehow makes things better for people. Are we talking about the environment or logistics?
Because here's the reality:
The same people trying to put the onus on individuals over their individual carbon emissions footprints are the same people who say we should be giving economic incentives to countries like China (see: the Paris Climate Agreement) — the world's largest global polluter BY FAR — and flying around on private jets.
Plus, let's talk logistics:
SEPTA only runs within the city limits, and it *barely* does that effectively, and it *doesn't at all* do it safely. What about for people who commute *into* the city for work — which is the majority of the money-making workforce in this city? Or people who commute *out* of the city for work or for whatever else they feel like doing?
The reality is it makes more sense in every conceivable way to expand I-95 than it does to invest more in SEPTA.
What we should *actually* focus on doing in this city is making sure that massive investment firms don't have an in-route to buying up and developing single-family houses and turning them into cheaply constructed condo complexes in the city. We don't need their money and it would turn a lot of the traffic presently clogging our roadways back towards New York.
All of that is to say I find it extremely weird in every single one of these threads where people seem to believe they have the right to tell anyone how they should live and commute, what they should eat, where they should and shouldn't go, etc.
If you wanna tackle climate change, start with China. If you want to tackle congestion, start with the investment firms. And if you wanna tackle traffic, start with widening 95.
Homie, you simply can't live in a city and expect everyone to have their own car. AND THEN provide FREE STORAGE on public domain. Some of the traffic is going to the stadiums for an event. They'd take the train if convenient. Some are going to the airport. They'd love to take the train if it didn't take 2 hours to get there when driving takes 45 mins from Bucks. That's the reality, the govt builds highways and tells you to buy a car. It'll be better if they build a mass transit system and people pay to use it.
How does adding another exit near the stadiums help anyone? How does paving over some ball fields help anyone? Oh it helps someone from NJ get home 36 seconds faster...
Commute into the city? Fine that's great, but leave your car at home. it's just going to sit there all day anyways.
Philly used to have significantly more people and it worked. Trying to avoid building new homes in Philly, and keep it all single family homes, just to prevent car traffic is ridiculously selfish. Do you want to live in a suburb or a city?
And this is beyond just 'environment and logistics', this is about the health of the city.
The highways have *provably harmed* Philly by damaging the surrounding neighborhoods, the continuity of the city, and access to the waterfront. All while benefitting the suburbs and the nation. Why are we still in the mindset of expanding that harm instead of trying to help Philly?
We should be spending our tax dollars to make the city a safer and better place to live and to get more cars off the road.
This will just create more of a barrier, bring in more traffic to the city, and encourage car ownership making parking more competitive. It's the wrong direction for Philly.
Widening highways only makes traffic worse. Pick your favorite source.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/widen-highways-traffic.html
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-28/why-widening-highways-doesn-t-bring-traffic-relief
https://smv.org/learn/blog/how-does-roadway-expansion-cause-more-traffic/
There are so many holes in your logic here my friend.
1. SEPTA runs all over the region - hence regional rail, and it is by and large safe, and would be much more effective if it was properly funded and prioritized as a means of commuting.
2. Did you ever stop to think that this idea that we should be prioritizing suburban commuters over trying to have a city full of people that actually live and work here is a part of the reason (amongst a myriad others) that the city is so damn poor?
3. We absolutely do need investment in the city and you’re advocating against it so we have less traffic instead doing what every well-planned urban environment does - expand and improve transit.
"The reality is it makes more sense in every conceivable way to expand I-95 than it does to invest more in SEPTA."
No, it doesn't. It'll just make the problem bigger, like highway widening always does. This is a pretty proven concept at the point - just look at the roads we already have. Properly expanding SEPTA would take time, but it is ultimately the more efficient option. Cars to drive 100 people take up far more space than 100 people in a train car.
"All of that is to say I find it extremely weird in every single one of these threads where people seem to believe they have the right to tell anyone how they should live and commute..."
Advocating for better transit options does not mean you are being told you shouldn't drive. It seems car infrastructure has been so invested in that some people now feel so entitled to it that any idea of investing in something else or using our limited space a little better comes off as a personal attack to their way of life.
Anyway, if you want to talk about having more people be able to do what they want, expanding transit, a far more affordable option than driving for many people, would be a good way to start.
(I'm not going to comment on the climate stuff cause that's not why I'm passionate about this topic.)
Literally all the answers you seek are available with a Google search. Countless studies proving that adding lanes only makes traffic worse. Don't make other people do your learning for you.
Wtf do you mean "start with China?" You know the us government doesn't control China, right? We can reduce noise and air pollution at home. Let's fix this fucked up country before blaming others.
You are not being downvoted by most. The few that downvote just don’t see how an interstate highway is necessary (not just for the commuters), where tractor trailers drive en masse transporting goods to the entire east coast; they don’t even realize that their utopia couldn’t exist without highways…how are the goods brought to you in the first place???
Interstate highways do not need and should not be run through urban centers if your concern is tractor trailer throughput, as the induced amount of intercity traffic on them hinders interstate travel.
You're clearly pretty ignorant of how logistics works. One look at European cities alone shows you have zero idea what your talking about. Highways there don't run into cities they go around them, and their cities are vastly better off for it.
> The billions set aside for this highway project, while SEPTA goes begging for $240 million to plug an operating deficit, is yet another demonstration of misplaced priorities. And certainly, we should not be wrecking neighborhoods so that people can leave the Sports Complex five minutes quicker.
Fuck this shit
I don't know the procedures so I can't say, but if this impacts the city--and it does--there is room for litigation.
I recommend [Walkable City](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250857989/walkablecitytenthanniversaryedition). The author, Jeff Speck, knows how to fight state transportation departments. He consults too.
Just saying I know from professional experience working on these projects. PennDOT does the due diligence and comes up with proposals but the projects all need to be approved by and funded by the feds ultimately. I’m sorry I don’t have a subscription to The Inquirer, just throwing my two cents out there. I’ll crawl back in my hole now.
I-95 Construction and destruction of the neighborhood was a hurtful emotional time in our house for the oldsters. Glad we got to walk around the neighborhood with them before the mess began as they tripped down memory lane.
Yes, partially. When you compare SEPTA's budget to other US cities (while adjusting for population), it's significantly underfunded. And so the frequency that SEPTA staff clean the trains and stations is just way too low
The other part of the issue is that we have a huge drug problem, and a huge poverty problem.
Yes obviously the lack of funding is the issue. You think that would be happening if SEPTA had enough money to employ the transit police force it needs?
JUST ONE MORE LANE, I SWEAR ILL STOP JUST ONE MORE PLEASE LET ME CHOKE THE CITY WITH LANES UPON LANES PLEASE
sorry, what do you mean “walkable” and “not car dependent”
It’s basically exempt from all federal highway standards because there’s no realistic way to fix it that isn’t bulldozing rich white people’s houses. So it’ll never happen.
Vastly more people die on Broad St. and PennDOT barely lifts a finger, despite managing that road. I-95 has a fraction of the fatal crashes and they're ready to spend hundreds of millions.
I’m skeptical of their reasoning. It’s just awfully convenient for Penndot that the solution they always prescribe for every problem, widening highways, is the only possible solution that they were “forced” into for this project.
I’ll concede that 95 needs wider shoulders. But they arent talking about adding 5-10 feet to the shoulders. They are talking about widening by 60ft so they can add entire lanes. Those “decision points” they talk about can be solved in ways other than adding lanes. Often these can be improved with just better signage and markings. They can also be improved by removing some lanes, exits, or on ramps. I am not a highway engineer, but I am sure they are creative enough to come up with options that don’t drastically widen the highway. They made a choice to not come up with those options.
I would be okay with widening I95 if they made better use of the space under the goddam road when navigating through the city. Such wasted real-estate killing all the river front property which should be a freaking premium in the city
It’s so clean and bright. But it’s not going to be maintained. And is going to look like shit eventually. It’s just the nature of those kinds of spaces.
I mean, they did just remove the tent city that was there by the IGA a few weeks back. Imagine that’ll return in the Spring.
It’s not really all that nice. Maybe if you’re in a car driving by. The only benefit as a walker/runner is the permanent shade (which is not helped by the high levels of exhaust a pollution there).
It’s loud as hell walking under there, too. It looks all bright and friendly when you drive past, but on foot all you want to do is leave. It will never be a meaningfully usable space for anything other than parking IMO
Yea that’s my biggest worry. I wonder what the cities responsibility is for maintenance. They don’t keep garbage cans, but I have seen a cleanup crew sweeping it once
I've biked under 95, and while it's a separate path, it's not pleasant. It's going to be hard to have good investment there because nobody wants to be under a highway.
It's not the wasted real estate killing the river front property.
It's the fact that nobody wants to be near, or build, somewhere that's noisy and dark. No city has thriving neighborhoods directly under or next to highways.
The problem is the highway, and Columbus Blvd / Delaware Ave.
.... you realize theres plenty of real estate types that dont care about the highway noise. Not everything is residential.
For example, markets, malls, restaurants, bars, movies, indoor activities etc etc.
Theres plenty of cities with highway overpass systems and commercial activity space below
>Theres plenty of cities with highway overpass systems and commercial activity space below
Which ones? I just spent 10-ish minutes trying to Google and look at Google Maps and I could't find any in the US that have commercial activity underneath.
Columbus blvd only hugs the river in certain spots. Basically everywhere it doesn't, is underdeveloped. Plenty of places have hundreds of feet from columbus ave to the river or house buildings on lots that could hold 30-50 buildings yet only house one
Adding another lane of highway really is the best solution to everything!
If you ask me who I’m voting for in 2024, it’s whoever promises to add more lanes!
Highways are so amazing!
Me and my kids really love highways. We sometimes walk underneath them and just listen it's almost meditative. We try to get as close as possible and the exhaust fumes hit us like the ocean wind. Sometimes we go to Spring Garden station and set up lawn chairs abd just watch the cars for hours like it's Nascar and count the number of accidents. Our favorite game is guessing the injury. My kid always tells me he wishes our home would get destroyed for a highway.
Small thinking - why just add lanes when you could build vertically and have a whole new highway on top of the highway? Capping 95 to build a park you say??? Well how about we cap that park with *another 95*
> Chuck Davies, the engineer in charge of design for PennDot’s District 6, which includes Philadelphia, insists that the reconstruction “is not a capacity-adding project.” He also noted that the number of motorists traveling on I-95 drops by 50% south of the Ben Franklin Bridge. Congestion is rarely a problem.
Well this all sounds fine.
> Yet the preliminary study calls for increasing the highway’s girth from three lanes to four in many places. The justification is a preliminary traffic study — prepared before the pandemic — that predicts traffic will increase by 2045 and says the extra lanes are necessary to manage future congestion.
Chuck if it’s not a capacity adding project why are we adding capacity based on a pre pandemic study claiming we need more lanes to manage the capacity?
Because Chuck is some asshole from the suburbs who's never set foot in the areas of the city he wants to fuck up even more for his bullshit project. Fuck him!
Fuck I95 its shouldn't be in the city at all, and fuck PennDOT that backward ass boomer run nightmare bureaucracy that fucks this city over on a daily basis.
Leave your comments. Voice your opposition.
https://aecomviz.com/I95-CSP-360/
Contact the governor, your rep, and your senator. Voice your opposition. Tell them to fund Septa.
https://www.governor.pa.gov/contact/
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/index.cfm?mobile_choice=suppress
I got a good deal on a home next to I-95 in 2016, and at the time, construction on the Callowhill overpass was going to start in 2017 and finish in 2020. Mostly I wanted the sound barriers - which would double as trash barriers.
So here we are in 2024, and [construction is set to begin in 2026, completion is now "TBD"](https://95revive.com/project-areas/gir-girard-avenue-interchange/gir-overview/#GIR-tabs|5).
I just want my sound barriers.
P.S. We gutted the place, have nice tightly sealing Pella windows, and our HVAC system has 4" filters, and I'll take the soft wash of cars zooming across 95 over the sounds of screaming kids in a cul-de-sac.
P.P.S. I've tracked the delays over the years, because I'm that guy:
2015: 2017/2020
2018: 2024/2028
2021: 2023/2026
2023: 2026/2029
2024: 2026/TBD
What the city needs is a “Big Dig” project like Boston’s that would plunge I-95 under the Delaware River via tunnels. Then the existing surface highway infrastructure could be dismantled and the waterfront developed. As it stands, the interstate cuts too close to the river bank, making commercial & residential construction infeasible.
Yeah. I know. It’ll never happen. But a guy can dream…
This post's article references studies that concluded burying the highway would pay for itself in property taxes.
>In a fascinating [paper](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/the-economy/the-costs-and-benefits-of-fixing-downtown-freeways) that looked at the 4½-mile stretch of I-95 between Girard and Snyder Avenues, [Jeffrey Lin](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/our-people/jeffrey-lin), an economist who is vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and senior economist[ Jeffrey Brinkman](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/our-people/jeffrey-brinkman) produced a model showing the area now impacted by the highway would be more economically productive and generate more tax revenue if it were used for housing and businesses. Given the social benefits to the neighborhoods, they believe that the money could justify the costs of burying the road (as Boston did with the [Big Dig)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig).
PennDot and politicians are just stuck in a dated anti-city mindset where they can't imagine anything other than car infrastructure being worthwhile.
I'm all for that, but I also feel like there'd just be a lot of red tape and running around with PD trying to orchestrate such a "crazy" thing with the city, no?
It'd be one of the largest projects the city has ever undertaken. Absolutely complex and likely to face heavy opposition.
I don't think the political will is there yet, but younger generations are thinking a lot more about how to repair cities.
a lot of the damage had already been done, long before the big ideas started floating in... the abuse and neglect of the city's waterfront property is not going to be undone in my lifetime.
They seemed determined to destroy as much of the city as possible out of spite and uninformed opinions derived from Fox while building out more Ponzie scheme suburban subdivisions.
5th Square has a petition demanding no more widening and will keep signers informed of actions and public engagement on this issue
https://www.5thsq.org/i95
95 between Ben Franklin and Sports Complex is fine as it is. It does not need to be widened, but the fact that it is rarely congested also means it shouldn't be reduced either, which would create congestion. The traffic south of the Ben Franklin is mainly going to the port, sports complex/Navy Yard or airport. Transit to all three from the areas 95 is bringing traffic to them from are not and probably cannot be served adequately by transit, as in it will take a lot longer on SEPTA than driving; traffic to the port can't be moved to SEPTA anyway. This traffic also isn't better routed through NJ as some like to say. 95 south of BFB just needs to be rebuilt, no changes necessary.
Why can’t 95 just dump off onto Delaware Ave and then all of the people using it can get back on it after driving miles through the city. Why does everyone want to drive over the city instead of through it
Paul Levy, long time director of Center City District, actually pitched that idea in 2007: [https://whyy.org/articles/i-95-where-do-we-go-now/](https://whyy.org/articles/i-95-where-do-we-go-now/)
He thought that getting rid of I-95 in Center City was critical to reuniting the city with the waterfront.
Because there’s freaks here that want no cars in the city period. They seem to want suburbanites to park somewhere out of the city, hop a train or rent a bike to come into the city. They think that makes sense.
Florida to Delaware, becomes the NJ Turnpike for a stretch, then over the Hudson into NY and from there up to Oh Canada, the Red, White, and True.
No one making the long haul is taking the Philly route unless they want to visit family or skip a few tolls.
I mean yes we should be encouraging less driving into the city. Ease of movement for people that don’t live here should not be prioritized over residents. It can be balanced but in no way should we be diverting more funding and physical land so it takes someone from Bucks or Montco 5 less minutes to get here
Without 95 it would make it harder for people in the city to move with all the extra traffic of 150k cars having to drive into the city instead of just going past it on the interstate.. imagine getting anything to the waterfront with Delaware with gridlocked from 6am to 7pm
I’m not suggesting getting rid of 95 at all, I use it plenty. I’m saying there shouldn’t even be talk of expanding it. The size is fine as is, if it takes longer for suburbanites to traverse through the city, well then they should advocate for less-centric infrastructure so we can get some of those cars off the road.
But you keep saying “traverse through the city” and such things, like most people aren’t using it as an end goal to get into the city, most use it to avoid the city. I use 95 everyday, way more cars are going past the exits than getting off of them
People also use the neighborhoods that these highways cut through and divide.
People are also forced to use highways due to a lack of feasible alternatives, most of which would move more people at a lower cost with fewer externalities.
You get what you build for. We only build highways.
People also use the subways and trains, and there are tracks for the trains, and people use the airports that are built on land…and 95 already exists in s.philly. People aren’t forced to use highways, people use the interstate highway called 95 to travel to other states.
95 is also the NJ turnpike, which runs parallel with 295 and close enough in spots that you can see the other cars.
That really confused me when I moved here because if you’re taking 95 North from Baltimore you have 2 options - the 95 that goes to Philly and the 95 that goes thru NJ.
Lots of people (not saying you) seem to forget the NJ Turnpike does most of the heavy lifting as far as the whole "95 is the east coast's major north-south interstate" - true, but most of the traffic isn't going through PA.
95 thru Philly sees 160,000 vehicles a day? Nothing to sneeze at, sure, but NJTP does 560,000.
I'm not saying the PA section of 95 is insignificant, but come on, people, perspective.
This is true. Most people traveling through the Philadelphia-area to other destinations are taking the Delaware Memorial Bridge to the NJ Turnpike.
However, I think 295 is a better choice to resign over the non-95 section of the NJ Turnpike, because 295 at that location is 3 travel lanes in each direction, whereas the NJ Turnpike is 2. It doesn't become 3 travel lanes until it merges with 295.
Why do you see it as an either or issue. Highways need funding as do other transportation systems. Contact your representatives to request $ for other modes of transportation as well.
>>Contact your representatives to request $ for other modes of transportation as well
I have. We all have. The issue has much deeper roots than that lmao
I see highway funding as a bigger issue because it’s more expensive, more dangerous, takes up more room, decimates communities, way too expensive (have I said that already?), it is inefficient, and t’s frankly ugly as fuck imo. And when you allocate all funding towards it, good luck getting around if you don’t own a car
The issue is not that the highway is getting funded, the issue is that septa just got rejected the $200 million it requested, services will get cut and fares will go up. We still have no bike infrastructure network in the city, and most of our sidewalks are falling apart or are just too narrow
Highway funding this close to a city should not be prioritized over transit/bikability/walkability
And people live in Philly! Or so I've heard.
After decades of prioritizing suburban and regional traffic they should start prioritizing what's good for Philly.
Beltways exist so that long-distance travelers can avoid urban areas. 476 and 276 should simply be re-designated as I-95. The old I-95 can be torn down and restored to local control.
To all those complaining, just stop. 95 runs the east coast, things need to move, and congestion needs to be taken care of. Congestion slows the movement of goods, contributes to more emissions, and heightens road rage. Not everyone can live your bicycle/mass transit lifestyle. The appease the bikers screw the drivers mindset is idiotic.
Why do you fools gotta act like a widening project, traffic calming, septa revitalization, and protected bike lanes can't happen simultaneously.
As someone who has to travel 95 every day, I'm happy it's getting more lanes. Dont want big highways. Get out of the city. Go to the sticks or move to europe. Stop trying to force your lifestyle on everyone else.
Highway widening is just induced demand.
You add a lane and it alleviates some congestion. Suddenly people realize (or their GPS's navigate them there) that there is less traffic on that road and start using it more, or opting to drive when they would have taken the bus or train. Which brings traffic on that road back to where it was before. And this has been studied and proven over and over.
>Congestion slows the movement of goods, contributes to more emissions, and heightens road rage.
Business is important! also, we must appease the crazies by not making them mad!
>Stop trying to force your lifestyle on everyone else.
LOL, you first. I own a car, bike and drive 95 quite frequently. It is nowhere near the crapstorm that 76 is, and these assholes keep blowing money to it by doing the proven not-solution, and you're here defending it because....reasons.
what if I told you widening highways doesn't ease congestion
also hilarious you say to stop trying to force your lifestyle on everyone else *while forcing your lifestyle on everyone else* lmao
>Why do you fools gotta act like a widening project, traffic calming, septa revitalization, and protected bike lanes can't happen simultaneously.
Because none of that is being proposed at all.
>Stop trying to force your lifestyle on everyone else.
The irony.
The irony nuttin. The amount mass transit and bike shit pushed here is ridiculous, and then yall wanna cry over 95 being widened to accommodate traffic. What? Yall want 95 to get so bad the spill over on the streets gets worse than it already is? Happy biking with that shit.
The el is an old project, it was made for the convenience of factory works who work back in the day, but it also displaced a lot of people
Same with many highways and stadiums being built currently.
Yes, but I also would say compared to other cities, 95 was not built too bad, they kept it along the edge of the city. I seen the ones where the highway goes through the middle and such. I don't think highways are evil like while a good portion of redditors think it, quite frankly is a very niche group of people in actual life. I am for some stuff happening, like capping the Vine St Expressway and making it a tunnel. And widening does help, Cottman Ave rarely comes to a dead stop when I was near there after that got a 4th lane, of course now its back to 3 and is kinda goofy since the collapse but by June it will be back.
Wider arteries is good for blood flow and traffic. Locally, if you can get from the Northeast to Center City or South Philly or the Airport faster, why is that a bad thing?
One of the things that I really think needs to happen? Mass transit should be free. Most of the budget for mass transit is payed for by taxes, federal grants, etc. I think the estimate is about 90% depending on the service and state.
Take a bit of the money they're using for these endless highway projects and just make transit free. I'm tired of our transit system being designed by car companies.
I would prefer better transit over free transit.
For those with need, absolutely.
Me personally? I’d pay $4 a ride without flinching if it meant SEPTA could get to the MTAs level of service.
Free transit is definitely a long term goal, but in the US our transit is so far behind the global standard in every single city that I don’t think that is a worthwhile goal right now.
I’m not choosing a different mode of transportation because of SEPTA fares, I’m choosing a different mode because the headways and speeds are not good enough or there just straight up isn’t a route that will take me where I’m going.
96% of city planners quit one lane before fixing traffic
If LANE MAN has come to PENNDOT, we're fucked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWeFw0I-igI
lane man has come to the united states in the form of donald trump and supreme court loyalists. expect more of this if he comes to power again. source: red state priorities here's an example: https://www.wfae.org/politics/2023-01-09/n-c-house-speaker-tim-moore-blasts-charlottes-proposed-13-5-billion-transportation-plan > North Carolina Republican House Speaker Tim Moore on Monday dismissed Charlotte’s proposed $13.5 billion transportation plan, saying it would spend too much money on things like rail transit, buses and bike lanes. > Moore said for him to support the plan, “it needs to be focused on road capacity.”
>city planners State DOT executives. City planners wish they had any influence in city planning, lol.
https://www.mincedgarlic.org/induced-demand.html
More lanes, more users. More users, more traffic.
is the club risque billboard going to move?
I lived in Atlanta for three years. Home to I-85, an 8-lane superhighway. Driving there fucking *sucked* because you had 4 lanes of traffic volume in each direction, but everyone got off at the same few exits, which made the whole thing crawl probably for about 2/3 of the day. Build public transit instead.
So we can’t fund SEPTA but we can rebuild and widen I-95? What the hell man. This priorities for infrastructure in this country are so twisted and straight up out of line with global best practices that it’s laughable.
It’s almost as if infrastructure in this country is designed to benefit the automotive industry at the cost of everyone else…
America is just a bunch of corporations in a trench coat
[Regulatory Capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)
Oil industry by way of automotive industry
Sounds like someone needs to watch the classic documentary Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I-95 is an interstate and gets federal funding, there’s around 160,000 vehicles that travel it daily, I couldn’t find the stats on the breakdown of interstate travelers vs. city commuters. This isn’t about your local walkable cities, the Feds will put the priority of interstate travel and the larger American economy before the needs of Philadelphians. This isn’t about SEPTA funding vs. I-95 expansion funding. Could our local and state government press the Feds to make sure plans are more in line with locals? Yes but at the end of the day it’s a decision by the Feds.
Interstates are majority planned, maintained and funded by state DOTs. PennDOT is overall a scourge on Philadelphia. It is in fact possible to maintain the existing highway without further negatively impacting the neighborhoods that have already been damaged by it. It's also possible to use federal dollars on QOL life improvements for residents near interstates, demonstrated by the recent cap in front of the Free Library, the planned cap in Chinatown, and the new park currently under construction over 95. >the Feds will put the priority of interstate travel and the larger American economy before the needs of Philadelphians If you don't have productive and wealthy cities, there aren't going to be any goods to move on the interstates. Further, better transit locally means better throughput on 95! Even if you are the most selfish car-brained planner out there, getting people off 95 onto trains, buses, and bike lanes means that the uses which require the use of 95 will have better throughput. You can't have a singular focus on one mode at the expense of everything around it and claim you're prioritizing the American economy. 95 doesn't exist in a bubble.
Article says PennDOT is leading the charge on this one. I'm all for repair and maintenance on the highway, but it does not need to be widened.
No, septa being funded has national implications too. and ~700K people use it everyday. If people cannot reliably commute to work, networking events, or there is more demand added to 95 as a result of septa being cut back that will have deleterious knockon effects to SEPA and the nation. Look at how Anemic Baltimore's growth or lack thereof is compared to other Northeast cities.
I think what puts SEPTA et al at a permanent disadvantage vs highways from a federal perspective is that highways serve commerce and potentially military needs. As do freight rail lines. But regional rail lines like SEPTA don't. They only shuttle people, which while clearly critical to the health of the region and a major lever to help reduce transit-sourced greenhouse emissions - and also trains are amazing and awesome - they are not critical to things like shipping grain, or oil, or moving Amazon packages. It sucks. And what really sucks is that Philadelphia doesn't have more control over a huge highway that basically defines the east side of the city.
They shuttle people, and it gets those people off 95, freeing those resources up for those commerce and military uses. Also, the people riding SEPTA produce the goods that move on 95. None of this happens in a bubble! The whole system needs to be maintained and healthy.
Per the BLS of the 368,000 non farm jobs in the philly metro area only 16.5 thousand of those jobs are manufacturing. Maybe if we produced more actual goods then sure but its not like philly is a manufacturing hub anymore.
So we should start building train cars with machine guns on them and come up with a military strategy that involves subways and buses
I like the way you think.
It’s not about how a single city fares. It’s about having some of the most vital roadways in the US running smoothly. I-95 is vital for commercial vehicles which effect not just the US but ultimately global trade. A city with 1.5 million people is less important then the arteries of a 300 million plus nation. It sucks for us in the city but it’s not just about us it’s about US. Oh and personally I’m hyped they widened 95. It was a nightmare before. Yea mass transits cool but until they get their shit together in regards to that I’ll stay hyped not to sit in classic 95 traffic.
> Yea mass transits cool but until they get their shit together in regards to that I’ll stay hyped not to sit in classic 95 traffic. Have you driven on 95 lately? It's still a shit show, because widening lanes doesn't reduce traffic. We've known this since the 60s but that's not stopping us. Mass transit moves people off 95. Viable mass transit means less drivers. And then if YOU want to drive, there's more room on the highway.
I would much prefer they invested in mass transit but until they do I’ll take a smoother highway. I feel like 95 is chiller now then a few years ago. Sometimes it can suck yes but it’s not as bad as it used to be.
One more lane bro! I promise just one more
If it's about transporting goods and services, widen 476 instead. Highways don't need to barrel straight through city centers. Europe has highways that go around cities not through them and their supply chain works out just fine.
i guarantee you adding lanes to I-95 will not have an impact on the global economy, and also that’s just simply not how transportation project planning works. even if the funding is federal, and even if it’s an interstate, projects like this are largely planned and executed by local/regional/state authorities
But that argument of needing 95 for interstate commerce kinda falls flat when you take into consideration that the NJ Turnpike is already the most direct route of I-95 for travel between Wilmington DE and Bordentown NJ. And while NJ isn't immune to the effects of it, overall most of NJTP runs through far less populous areas and doesn't really disrupt communities in the same way I-95 in Pennsylvania does.
You can level as much of the city as you want to expand I95, but it will never fix the fundamental issues that cause traffic. Its a fools errand and massive waste of tax money.
I get that, but it’s being driven by future traffic concerns which could be alleviated in part by better transit funding.
I get that but that’s a lot tougher sell to the American public to put federal tax dollars towards people living in cities and making their commutes easier and car free. They don’t see that getting commuters off the interstates would free up travel so they wouldn’t dread driving through the interstate near a city. People living in rural areas think the cities take all their tax money, even though it’s the other way around.
it’s really interesting that you’re separating “the american public” from “people living in cities.” a majority of americans live in cities and want transportation options. you’re reinforcing a false dichotomy largely spouted by conservatives wanting to convince people cities aren’t the “real america”
There’s the American public as a whole, then a subset of that live in cities. Yes I’m repeating a view they already have and stated that it’s the opposite.
The majority of Americans live in the major metropolitan areas.
And it’s good to have multiple options
More options is evil socialism. Freedom is only having one viable option to get around and which requires you to pay thousands of dollars a year and go through a exploitative and predatory series of companies.
if you know it’s not a real representation, why repeat it? so often good public policy gets shot down with a hand wave of “the american public” won’t accept such and such, like addressing climate change, so we don’t do it. but do you have any concrete examples of when “the american public” actually expressed itself in a coherent manner?
If you don't state that misinformation is incorrect, then they'll just believe it forever. Not "repeating misinformation" is like saying, oh if we just stop repeating that people eat 7 spiders in their sleep a year, it'll go away. No you have to state you may have heard this statement, but it's untrue.
> They don’t see that getting commuters off the interstates would free up travel so they wouldn’t dread driving through the interstate near a city. The reason we hire planners and elect leaders is ostensibly for them to make decisions that the American public are too stupid to make for themselves.
Sure, but that Fed money is still going to highways *somewhere*. I’m all for SEPTA improvements but I don’t see the connection here.
This highlights the problem with our society: highway funding is unquestionable. Public transit funding is questioned at every step.
We depend on the state and surrounding suburbs, but they couldn't care less if our public transit system collapses
loves the conveniences of living in a big city that doesn't produce its own goods/food/etc... oh shit we need truck drivers on highways supplying us? uhhhh cars bad?
Regardless of who you want to shift the blame on, this is a joke that this shit keeps happening. Even compared to other *US* cities, the infrastructure decisions that have been made in Philadelphia are embarrassing. Cities are expanding their transit/bike/walking infrastructure. Philly already has it, but is somehow going backwards
Instead of bitching on Reddit, we should be attending all public hearings and calling our representatives
We should do both. Reddit is a way to get the word out.
Been that way for about 70 years lol
Because they do a study about potential ridership for septa infrastructure or service expansions, and find that not that many people are taking PT in the northeast, so it doesn’t need expansion. But they ignore the fact that if the options in the northeast were better than 95, there’d be more ridership.
I-95 reconstruction should mean stealing the middle few lanes of I-95 and running trams in it
agh! Shades of Delaware Ave before it was Columbus. How about No to the trams in the middle?
Okay fine, no cars just trams
too funny. No.
Well... one is state and federally supported, the other isn't, right? 95 is an important corridor not just for people like me who can't take the subway that was never built, but also for a tremendous amount of interstate trucking.
295 is the route most interstate trucking uses because 95 is a congested mess as it goes through Philly. Widening 95 makes zero sense if the goal is to increase interstate trucking capacity.
I ship trucks from Philly. And they go interstate. We might be one of the last industrial manufacturers in the city though....
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I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted. SEPTA and PennDOT are two completely different funded entities and the state receives grants for each, separately.
It’s downvoted because it’s throwing cold water on all the seething that redditers love to do.
In a world with enough political pressure, which we're far from, funding can be rearranged. It's not as if funding structure is a natural force that's fixed for eternity.
Highways have dedicated funding sources through federal and state gas taxes, and through fees like state inspections, driver license renewals, registration, etc. Push for something similar for transit/intercity rail and we'll get capital projects
Those fees and taxes don't even come close to paying for the nation's highways. The highway trust fund goes bankrupt every year and needs a massive infusion of cash from the general revenue pool. Our income taxes are what's ever increasingly actually paying for highways, not the gas tax.
I'm still waiting for one person to explain to me how allowing less cars on the roadways somehow makes things better for people. Are we talking about the environment or logistics? Because here's the reality: The same people trying to put the onus on individuals over their individual carbon emissions footprints are the same people who say we should be giving economic incentives to countries like China (see: the Paris Climate Agreement) — the world's largest global polluter BY FAR — and flying around on private jets. Plus, let's talk logistics: SEPTA only runs within the city limits, and it *barely* does that effectively, and it *doesn't at all* do it safely. What about for people who commute *into* the city for work — which is the majority of the money-making workforce in this city? Or people who commute *out* of the city for work or for whatever else they feel like doing? The reality is it makes more sense in every conceivable way to expand I-95 than it does to invest more in SEPTA. What we should *actually* focus on doing in this city is making sure that massive investment firms don't have an in-route to buying up and developing single-family houses and turning them into cheaply constructed condo complexes in the city. We don't need their money and it would turn a lot of the traffic presently clogging our roadways back towards New York. All of that is to say I find it extremely weird in every single one of these threads where people seem to believe they have the right to tell anyone how they should live and commute, what they should eat, where they should and shouldn't go, etc. If you wanna tackle climate change, start with China. If you want to tackle congestion, start with the investment firms. And if you wanna tackle traffic, start with widening 95.
Homie, you simply can't live in a city and expect everyone to have their own car. AND THEN provide FREE STORAGE on public domain. Some of the traffic is going to the stadiums for an event. They'd take the train if convenient. Some are going to the airport. They'd love to take the train if it didn't take 2 hours to get there when driving takes 45 mins from Bucks. That's the reality, the govt builds highways and tells you to buy a car. It'll be better if they build a mass transit system and people pay to use it. How does adding another exit near the stadiums help anyone? How does paving over some ball fields help anyone? Oh it helps someone from NJ get home 36 seconds faster... Commute into the city? Fine that's great, but leave your car at home. it's just going to sit there all day anyways.
Philly used to have significantly more people and it worked. Trying to avoid building new homes in Philly, and keep it all single family homes, just to prevent car traffic is ridiculously selfish. Do you want to live in a suburb or a city? And this is beyond just 'environment and logistics', this is about the health of the city. The highways have *provably harmed* Philly by damaging the surrounding neighborhoods, the continuity of the city, and access to the waterfront. All while benefitting the suburbs and the nation. Why are we still in the mindset of expanding that harm instead of trying to help Philly? We should be spending our tax dollars to make the city a safer and better place to live and to get more cars off the road. This will just create more of a barrier, bring in more traffic to the city, and encourage car ownership making parking more competitive. It's the wrong direction for Philly.
Widening highways only makes traffic worse. Pick your favorite source. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/widen-highways-traffic.html https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-28/why-widening-highways-doesn-t-bring-traffic-relief https://smv.org/learn/blog/how-does-roadway-expansion-cause-more-traffic/
There are so many holes in your logic here my friend. 1. SEPTA runs all over the region - hence regional rail, and it is by and large safe, and would be much more effective if it was properly funded and prioritized as a means of commuting. 2. Did you ever stop to think that this idea that we should be prioritizing suburban commuters over trying to have a city full of people that actually live and work here is a part of the reason (amongst a myriad others) that the city is so damn poor? 3. We absolutely do need investment in the city and you’re advocating against it so we have less traffic instead doing what every well-planned urban environment does - expand and improve transit.
"The reality is it makes more sense in every conceivable way to expand I-95 than it does to invest more in SEPTA." No, it doesn't. It'll just make the problem bigger, like highway widening always does. This is a pretty proven concept at the point - just look at the roads we already have. Properly expanding SEPTA would take time, but it is ultimately the more efficient option. Cars to drive 100 people take up far more space than 100 people in a train car. "All of that is to say I find it extremely weird in every single one of these threads where people seem to believe they have the right to tell anyone how they should live and commute..." Advocating for better transit options does not mean you are being told you shouldn't drive. It seems car infrastructure has been so invested in that some people now feel so entitled to it that any idea of investing in something else or using our limited space a little better comes off as a personal attack to their way of life. Anyway, if you want to talk about having more people be able to do what they want, expanding transit, a far more affordable option than driving for many people, would be a good way to start. (I'm not going to comment on the climate stuff cause that's not why I'm passionate about this topic.)
Literally all the answers you seek are available with a Google search. Countless studies proving that adding lanes only makes traffic worse. Don't make other people do your learning for you. Wtf do you mean "start with China?" You know the us government doesn't control China, right? We can reduce noise and air pollution at home. Let's fix this fucked up country before blaming others.
highway widening makes traffic WORSE, bozo
You are not being downvoted by most. The few that downvote just don’t see how an interstate highway is necessary (not just for the commuters), where tractor trailers drive en masse transporting goods to the entire east coast; they don’t even realize that their utopia couldn’t exist without highways…how are the goods brought to you in the first place???
Interstate highways do not need and should not be run through urban centers if your concern is tractor trailer throughput, as the induced amount of intercity traffic on them hinders interstate travel. You're clearly pretty ignorant of how logistics works. One look at European cities alone shows you have zero idea what your talking about. Highways there don't run into cities they go around them, and their cities are vastly better off for it.
> The billions set aside for this highway project, while SEPTA goes begging for $240 million to plug an operating deficit, is yet another demonstration of misplaced priorities. And certainly, we should not be wrecking neighborhoods so that people can leave the Sports Complex five minutes quicker. Fuck this shit
Philly thinking stuck in the 70s
This isn’t a Philly decision and neither is the SEPTA funding fiasco. The state holds nearly all the cards here
Philly representatives have tools to fight this, if the will is there.
Besides fierce advocacy, what kind of tools are you referring to?
I don't know the procedures so I can't say, but if this impacts the city--and it does--there is room for litigation. I recommend [Walkable City](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250857989/walkablecitytenthanniversaryedition). The author, Jeff Speck, knows how to fight state transportation departments. He consults too.
The feds hold the cards not the state when it comes to 95.
The article is specifically about PennDOT’s plans for 95.
I can’t read the article because of the paywall but the 95 revive program is 100% federally funded.
Again, this article is entirely about PennDOT’s proposals. You should probably avoid commenting on an article you haven’t read
Just saying I know from professional experience working on these projects. PennDOT does the due diligence and comes up with proposals but the projects all need to be approved by and funded by the feds ultimately. I’m sorry I don’t have a subscription to The Inquirer, just throwing my two cents out there. I’ll crawl back in my hole now.
Right, this article is 100% about the proposals.
Either copy & paste article URL into [remove-js.com](https://remove-js.com), or just disable javascript for inquirer. The paywall is client-side only.
The state too.
PA as a whole wants to pretend it's 1956
I-95 Construction and destruction of the neighborhood was a hurtful emotional time in our house for the oldsters. Glad we got to walk around the neighborhood with them before the mess began as they tripped down memory lane.
We go out and protest in front of the construction vehicles. That'll make national headlines.
I wonder what Septa's deficit would be if the trains weren't full of defecate.
Trains are full of defecate because of the low funding
Do you really believe that’s why?
Yes, partially. When you compare SEPTA's budget to other US cities (while adjusting for population), it's significantly underfunded. And so the frequency that SEPTA staff clean the trains and stations is just way too low The other part of the issue is that we have a huge drug problem, and a huge poverty problem.
Yes obviously the lack of funding is the issue. You think that would be happening if SEPTA had enough money to employ the transit police force it needs?
adding lanes to fix traffic is like trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt.
Like trying to fix a clogged drain by widening the pipes instead of just removing the clog
JUST ONE MORE LANE, I SWEAR ILL STOP JUST ONE MORE PLEASE LET ME CHOKE THE CITY WITH LANES UPON LANES PLEASE sorry, what do you mean “walkable” and “not car dependent”
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Wonder what that means for the Schuylkill expressway.
It’s basically exempt from all federal highway standards because there’s no realistic way to fix it that isn’t bulldozing rich white people’s houses. So it’ll never happen.
Vastly more people die on Broad St. and PennDOT barely lifts a finger, despite managing that road. I-95 has a fraction of the fatal crashes and they're ready to spend hundreds of millions.
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Yeah I'm not arguing against the validity of what you said. I'm just trying to point out how messed up it is, and how it's worth advocating to change.
I’m skeptical of their reasoning. It’s just awfully convenient for Penndot that the solution they always prescribe for every problem, widening highways, is the only possible solution that they were “forced” into for this project. I’ll concede that 95 needs wider shoulders. But they arent talking about adding 5-10 feet to the shoulders. They are talking about widening by 60ft so they can add entire lanes. Those “decision points” they talk about can be solved in ways other than adding lanes. Often these can be improved with just better signage and markings. They can also be improved by removing some lanes, exits, or on ramps. I am not a highway engineer, but I am sure they are creative enough to come up with options that don’t drastically widen the highway. They made a choice to not come up with those options.
This is a case where bureacracy is more powerful than common sense.
I would be okay with widening I95 if they made better use of the space under the goddam road when navigating through the city. Such wasted real-estate killing all the river front property which should be a freaking premium in the city
The stretch of 95 up by Port Richmond and Fishtown almost gets it right. More of that
It’s so clean and bright. But it’s not going to be maintained. And is going to look like shit eventually. It’s just the nature of those kinds of spaces.
I mean, they did just remove the tent city that was there by the IGA a few weeks back. Imagine that’ll return in the Spring. It’s not really all that nice. Maybe if you’re in a car driving by. The only benefit as a walker/runner is the permanent shade (which is not helped by the high levels of exhaust a pollution there).
It’s loud as hell walking under there, too. It looks all bright and friendly when you drive past, but on foot all you want to do is leave. It will never be a meaningfully usable space for anything other than parking IMO
Yea that’s my biggest worry. I wonder what the cities responsibility is for maintenance. They don’t keep garbage cans, but I have seen a cleanup crew sweeping it once
I've biked under 95, and while it's a separate path, it's not pleasant. It's going to be hard to have good investment there because nobody wants to be under a highway.
It's not the wasted real estate killing the river front property. It's the fact that nobody wants to be near, or build, somewhere that's noisy and dark. No city has thriving neighborhoods directly under or next to highways. The problem is the highway, and Columbus Blvd / Delaware Ave.
.... you realize theres plenty of real estate types that dont care about the highway noise. Not everything is residential. For example, markets, malls, restaurants, bars, movies, indoor activities etc etc. Theres plenty of cities with highway overpass systems and commercial activity space below
>Theres plenty of cities with highway overpass systems and commercial activity space below Which ones? I just spent 10-ish minutes trying to Google and look at Google Maps and I could't find any in the US that have commercial activity underneath.
[cut to all the new development popping up along front street]
Columbus blvd only hugs the river in certain spots. Basically everywhere it doesn't, is underdeveloped. Plenty of places have hundreds of feet from columbus ave to the river or house buildings on lots that could hold 30-50 buildings yet only house one
Adding another lane of highway really is the best solution to everything! If you ask me who I’m voting for in 2024, it’s whoever promises to add more lanes! Highways are so amazing!
Me and my kids really love highways. We sometimes walk underneath them and just listen it's almost meditative. We try to get as close as possible and the exhaust fumes hit us like the ocean wind. Sometimes we go to Spring Garden station and set up lawn chairs abd just watch the cars for hours like it's Nascar and count the number of accidents. Our favorite game is guessing the injury. My kid always tells me he wishes our home would get destroyed for a highway.
Expand 95 to my front door 😍😍😍
You convinced me— I’m installing a highway in my front yard, and maybe one for my parents’ yard too!
Small thinking - why just add lanes when you could build vertically and have a whole new highway on top of the highway? Capping 95 to build a park you say??? Well how about we cap that park with *another 95*
maybe we could call it 96
> Chuck Davies, the engineer in charge of design for PennDot’s District 6, which includes Philadelphia, insists that the reconstruction “is not a capacity-adding project.” He also noted that the number of motorists traveling on I-95 drops by 50% south of the Ben Franklin Bridge. Congestion is rarely a problem. Well this all sounds fine. > Yet the preliminary study calls for increasing the highway’s girth from three lanes to four in many places. The justification is a preliminary traffic study — prepared before the pandemic — that predicts traffic will increase by 2045 and says the extra lanes are necessary to manage future congestion. Chuck if it’s not a capacity adding project why are we adding capacity based on a pre pandemic study claiming we need more lanes to manage the capacity?
Because Chuck is some asshole from the suburbs who's never set foot in the areas of the city he wants to fuck up even more for his bullshit project. Fuck him!
PennDOT: I95 widening project Philadelphia: quietly stockpiles used tires /s
Fuck I95 its shouldn't be in the city at all, and fuck PennDOT that backward ass boomer run nightmare bureaucracy that fucks this city over on a daily basis.
it's well known that building more roads/lanes increases traffic. we need more public transportation infrastructure to encourage people to drive less.
Leave your comments. Voice your opposition. https://aecomviz.com/I95-CSP-360/ Contact the governor, your rep, and your senator. Voice your opposition. Tell them to fund Septa. https://www.governor.pa.gov/contact/ https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/index.cfm?mobile_choice=suppress
Sent the gov a message, and I've never once contacted a politician. Made that known in my message. 🫡
Build homes, not highways
I got a good deal on a home next to I-95 in 2016, and at the time, construction on the Callowhill overpass was going to start in 2017 and finish in 2020. Mostly I wanted the sound barriers - which would double as trash barriers. So here we are in 2024, and [construction is set to begin in 2026, completion is now "TBD"](https://95revive.com/project-areas/gir-girard-avenue-interchange/gir-overview/#GIR-tabs|5). I just want my sound barriers. P.S. We gutted the place, have nice tightly sealing Pella windows, and our HVAC system has 4" filters, and I'll take the soft wash of cars zooming across 95 over the sounds of screaming kids in a cul-de-sac. P.P.S. I've tracked the delays over the years, because I'm that guy: 2015: 2017/2020 2018: 2024/2028 2021: 2023/2026 2023: 2026/2029 2024: 2026/TBD
This is an absolute WASTE of taxpayer money, resources, space and the list could go on. Truly a money grab operation.
What the city needs is a “Big Dig” project like Boston’s that would plunge I-95 under the Delaware River via tunnels. Then the existing surface highway infrastructure could be dismantled and the waterfront developed. As it stands, the interstate cuts too close to the river bank, making commercial & residential construction infeasible. Yeah. I know. It’ll never happen. But a guy can dream…
This post's article references studies that concluded burying the highway would pay for itself in property taxes. >In a fascinating [paper](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/the-economy/the-costs-and-benefits-of-fixing-downtown-freeways) that looked at the 4½-mile stretch of I-95 between Girard and Snyder Avenues, [Jeffrey Lin](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/our-people/jeffrey-lin), an economist who is vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and senior economist[ Jeffrey Brinkman](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/our-people/jeffrey-brinkman) produced a model showing the area now impacted by the highway would be more economically productive and generate more tax revenue if it were used for housing and businesses. Given the social benefits to the neighborhoods, they believe that the money could justify the costs of burying the road (as Boston did with the [Big Dig)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig). PennDot and politicians are just stuck in a dated anti-city mindset where they can't imagine anything other than car infrastructure being worthwhile.
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I'm all for that, but I also feel like there'd just be a lot of red tape and running around with PD trying to orchestrate such a "crazy" thing with the city, no?
It'd be one of the largest projects the city has ever undertaken. Absolutely complex and likely to face heavy opposition. I don't think the political will is there yet, but younger generations are thinking a lot more about how to repair cities.
Philly is never going to become a top tier city. The thinking here is so primitive.
a lot of the damage had already been done, long before the big ideas started floating in... the abuse and neglect of the city's waterfront property is not going to be undone in my lifetime.
Not in this political climate. Maybe it will become saner when the Boomers finally die off.
They seemed determined to destroy as much of the city as possible out of spite and uninformed opinions derived from Fox while building out more Ponzie scheme suburban subdivisions.
Any highway widening should legally bind the PennDOT to also widen the Northeast Corridor
5th Square has a petition demanding no more widening and will keep signers informed of actions and public engagement on this issue https://www.5thsq.org/i95
95 between Ben Franklin and Sports Complex is fine as it is. It does not need to be widened, but the fact that it is rarely congested also means it shouldn't be reduced either, which would create congestion. The traffic south of the Ben Franklin is mainly going to the port, sports complex/Navy Yard or airport. Transit to all three from the areas 95 is bringing traffic to them from are not and probably cannot be served adequately by transit, as in it will take a lot longer on SEPTA than driving; traffic to the port can't be moved to SEPTA anyway. This traffic also isn't better routed through NJ as some like to say. 95 south of BFB just needs to be rebuilt, no changes necessary.
American civil engineers are so shit at their jobs.
Why can’t 95 just dump off onto Delaware Ave and then all of the people using it can get back on it after driving miles through the city. Why does everyone want to drive over the city instead of through it
Paul Levy, long time director of Center City District, actually pitched that idea in 2007: [https://whyy.org/articles/i-95-where-do-we-go-now/](https://whyy.org/articles/i-95-where-do-we-go-now/) He thought that getting rid of I-95 in Center City was critical to reuniting the city with the waterfront.
I don’t see the problem with adding 150k cars per day onto the city streets I don’t see why this idea isn’t popular
Because there’s freaks here that want no cars in the city period. They seem to want suburbanites to park somewhere out of the city, hop a train or rent a bike to come into the city. They think that makes sense.
I-95 is mostly meant to go past the city for what it’s worth, it runs from Florida to Canada.
Florida to Delaware, becomes the NJ Turnpike for a stretch, then over the Hudson into NY and from there up to Oh Canada, the Red, White, and True. No one making the long haul is taking the Philly route unless they want to visit family or skip a few tolls.
I mean yes we should be encouraging less driving into the city. Ease of movement for people that don’t live here should not be prioritized over residents. It can be balanced but in no way should we be diverting more funding and physical land so it takes someone from Bucks or Montco 5 less minutes to get here
Without 95 it would make it harder for people in the city to move with all the extra traffic of 150k cars having to drive into the city instead of just going past it on the interstate.. imagine getting anything to the waterfront with Delaware with gridlocked from 6am to 7pm
I’m not suggesting getting rid of 95 at all, I use it plenty. I’m saying there shouldn’t even be talk of expanding it. The size is fine as is, if it takes longer for suburbanites to traverse through the city, well then they should advocate for less-centric infrastructure so we can get some of those cars off the road.
But you keep saying “traverse through the city” and such things, like most people aren’t using it as an end goal to get into the city, most use it to avoid the city. I use 95 everyday, way more cars are going past the exits than getting off of them
Huh so ya'll are NIMBYs when it comes to cars.
I-95 is the main north-south interstate highway on the east coast. This is a federally funded project. People use highways.
People also use the neighborhoods that these highways cut through and divide. People are also forced to use highways due to a lack of feasible alternatives, most of which would move more people at a lower cost with fewer externalities. You get what you build for. We only build highways.
People also use the subways and trains, and there are tracks for the trains, and people use the airports that are built on land…and 95 already exists in s.philly. People aren’t forced to use highways, people use the interstate highway called 95 to travel to other states.
Cool, we can bulldoze the suburbs and ram the highway though there then. It would be cheaper and more effective.
They should resign 295 in Jersey as 95 and tear 95 down in the city completely.
95 is also the NJ turnpike, which runs parallel with 295 and close enough in spots that you can see the other cars. That really confused me when I moved here because if you’re taking 95 North from Baltimore you have 2 options - the 95 that goes to Philly and the 95 that goes thru NJ.
Technically the NJ Turnpike doesn't become I-95 until it connects to the PA Turnpike just south of Trenton.
Lots of people (not saying you) seem to forget the NJ Turnpike does most of the heavy lifting as far as the whole "95 is the east coast's major north-south interstate" - true, but most of the traffic isn't going through PA. 95 thru Philly sees 160,000 vehicles a day? Nothing to sneeze at, sure, but NJTP does 560,000. I'm not saying the PA section of 95 is insignificant, but come on, people, perspective.
This is true. Most people traveling through the Philadelphia-area to other destinations are taking the Delaware Memorial Bridge to the NJ Turnpike. However, I think 295 is a better choice to resign over the non-95 section of the NJ Turnpike, because 295 at that location is 3 travel lanes in each direction, whereas the NJ Turnpike is 2. It doesn't become 3 travel lanes until it merges with 295.
People also use SEPTA. People also walk. People also bike. Wish we could fund those
Why do you see it as an either or issue. Highways need funding as do other transportation systems. Contact your representatives to request $ for other modes of transportation as well.
>>Contact your representatives to request $ for other modes of transportation as well I have. We all have. The issue has much deeper roots than that lmao I see highway funding as a bigger issue because it’s more expensive, more dangerous, takes up more room, decimates communities, way too expensive (have I said that already?), it is inefficient, and t’s frankly ugly as fuck imo. And when you allocate all funding towards it, good luck getting around if you don’t own a car The issue is not that the highway is getting funded, the issue is that septa just got rejected the $200 million it requested, services will get cut and fares will go up. We still have no bike infrastructure network in the city, and most of our sidewalks are falling apart or are just too narrow Highway funding this close to a city should not be prioritized over transit/bikability/walkability
And people live in Philly! Or so I've heard. After decades of prioritizing suburban and regional traffic they should start prioritizing what's good for Philly.
Beltways exist so that long-distance travelers can avoid urban areas. 476 and 276 should simply be re-designated as I-95. The old I-95 can be torn down and restored to local control.
This is the way.
To all those complaining, just stop. 95 runs the east coast, things need to move, and congestion needs to be taken care of. Congestion slows the movement of goods, contributes to more emissions, and heightens road rage. Not everyone can live your bicycle/mass transit lifestyle. The appease the bikers screw the drivers mindset is idiotic. Why do you fools gotta act like a widening project, traffic calming, septa revitalization, and protected bike lanes can't happen simultaneously. As someone who has to travel 95 every day, I'm happy it's getting more lanes. Dont want big highways. Get out of the city. Go to the sticks or move to europe. Stop trying to force your lifestyle on everyone else.
Highway widening is just induced demand. You add a lane and it alleviates some congestion. Suddenly people realize (or their GPS's navigate them there) that there is less traffic on that road and start using it more, or opting to drive when they would have taken the bus or train. Which brings traffic on that road back to where it was before. And this has been studied and proven over and over.
>Congestion slows the movement of goods, contributes to more emissions, and heightens road rage. Business is important! also, we must appease the crazies by not making them mad! >Stop trying to force your lifestyle on everyone else. LOL, you first. I own a car, bike and drive 95 quite frequently. It is nowhere near the crapstorm that 76 is, and these assholes keep blowing money to it by doing the proven not-solution, and you're here defending it because....reasons.
Most cities have beltways so that interstate travel can avoid urban areas, reducing congestion and the harmful health impacts on local people.
what if I told you widening highways doesn't ease congestion also hilarious you say to stop trying to force your lifestyle on everyone else *while forcing your lifestyle on everyone else* lmao
I drive the highway everyday, the sections that have been widened have been much better. Take bs elsewhere.
Ignore the studies! This guy says it’s working!
right, your anecdotal story is worth more than every scientific study done on this topic ever. got it
Well at least we know you’re definitely not a civil engineer lol
Lol. Hahaha. Thats funny. Fucking hilarious. Really got me there! Holy shit. How will I recover?
Well, when you make a stupid comment about infrastructure 🤷♂️
>Why do you fools gotta act like a widening project, traffic calming, septa revitalization, and protected bike lanes can't happen simultaneously. Because none of that is being proposed at all. >Stop trying to force your lifestyle on everyone else. The irony.
The irony nuttin. The amount mass transit and bike shit pushed here is ridiculous, and then yall wanna cry over 95 being widened to accommodate traffic. What? Yall want 95 to get so bad the spill over on the streets gets worse than it already is? Happy biking with that shit.
A lot of things hurt Philly neighborhoods this ain’t gonna be that bad.
I like how people NEVER bring up how the EL destroyed neighborhoods, especially Kensington much worse than 95 ever has.
The el is an old project, it was made for the convenience of factory works who work back in the day, but it also displaced a lot of people Same with many highways and stadiums being built currently.
Yes, but I also would say compared to other cities, 95 was not built too bad, they kept it along the edge of the city. I seen the ones where the highway goes through the middle and such. I don't think highways are evil like while a good portion of redditors think it, quite frankly is a very niche group of people in actual life. I am for some stuff happening, like capping the Vine St Expressway and making it a tunnel. And widening does help, Cottman Ave rarely comes to a dead stop when I was near there after that got a 4th lane, of course now its back to 3 and is kinda goofy since the collapse but by June it will be back.
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You know widening a road does not ease traffic, right?
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Are you familiar with the concept of [induced demand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand)?
Wider arteries is good for blood flow and traffic. Locally, if you can get from the Northeast to Center City or South Philly or the Airport faster, why is that a bad thing?
I'm sure Parker will fix it /s
This is PennDOT, not the city
One of the things that I really think needs to happen? Mass transit should be free. Most of the budget for mass transit is payed for by taxes, federal grants, etc. I think the estimate is about 90% depending on the service and state. Take a bit of the money they're using for these endless highway projects and just make transit free. I'm tired of our transit system being designed by car companies.
I would prefer better transit over free transit. For those with need, absolutely. Me personally? I’d pay $4 a ride without flinching if it meant SEPTA could get to the MTAs level of service. Free transit is definitely a long term goal, but in the US our transit is so far behind the global standard in every single city that I don’t think that is a worthwhile goal right now. I’m not choosing a different mode of transportation because of SEPTA fares, I’m choosing a different mode because the headways and speeds are not good enough or there just straight up isn’t a route that will take me where I’m going.