Proposing a Transit-oriented Development Plan for the City of Philadelphia

To: Darrell L. Clarke, District 5 Council President
From: Elizabeth Wang, Planning Consultant, Penn City Institute
Re: Proposing a Transit-oriented Development Plan for the City of Philadelphia
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Summary
The city of Philadelphia, benefiting from its classic and contemporary cultural and historic heritages, presents its potential as a destination for residents and visitors to gather, stay and celebrate. To promote the city’s transits circulation and enhance urban functions with vibrancy and diversity, a transit-oriented-development (TOD) plan should be adopted in the Philly 2050 plan. TOD mode would alleviate congestion, decrease biofuel consumptions, provide clean environment, and further boost economy. Your office should advocate major strategies include: 1) to enhance the inter-model transportation network in the city and decrease people’s level of auto-dependency; 2) to achieve an organic urban form through mixed uses, detailed design and compact development; 3) to leverage community initiatives and public private participation using transit stations as catalysts.

Strategies
Decreasing Auto-dependency through a Multi-modal Transportation Network
This twofold strategy, as pointed out by Vuchic (1999), should on the one hand compress the volume of private cars, and on the other hand enhance the transit-oriented system in the inner core of a city. The nitty-gritty should be examined regarding relation of private cars and public transit, and the arterial streets versus the freeways (Vuchic, 1999, p. 264). To decrease the level of auto-dependency, decrease inner city car use, and enhance the outer freeway system to undermine the disruption from non-destination traffic. To enhance the multi-modal transportation network, the intermodal connection and efficiency should be improved for better walking and user experience.
a) Decreasing auto-dependency in inner city
Philadelphia, like most American cities, demonstrate a centralized highway system with major highwayssuch as I-95, I-76, and I-676 going through the downtown area. Traffic congestion in the peak hours would impact negatively the road traffic in the inner city. An extended highway system would be helpful to divert traffic during busy hours which would alleviate congestion by private cars in inner city road network. Apart from infrastructure investment, “car-use-pricing” (Vuchic, 1999) would be applied to disincentivize private car drivers from driving into inner city in peak hours. Strategies would be charging for parking spaces, restrictions on on-street parking in major streets, and increasing toll fees at certain hours, all of which would encourage people’s preference of using public transit to private vehicles.
While diverting outside freeway traffic, inner city should focus on a human-scaled transportation and land use pattern. Philadelphia’s transit systems in city areas including subway, buses and light rail fit in to right-of-way (ROW)1 Category C, meaning different transitmodes are not separated – except forrailways which belong to Category A due to the complete separation (Vuchic, 1999, p. 42). The predominantinterwoven transit and land use networks provide opportunities to enhance intermodal integration, and better preserve the human-scaled city life, which would further facilitate organic urban participation.
b) Enhancing intermodal integration around transits
Philadelphia should upgrade its existing multi-modal system to a seamlessly integrated transit network (Vuchic, 1999, p.295). Specifically, subway and buses should serve as the dominant commuting modes. In this way, punctuality and frequency in public transit would be crucial so passengers would better reply on subway and buses for daily commute without worrying about long-time waiting or traffic delay. Smart ticketing systemsshould be enhanced to betterintegrate multi-model transit. For example, public transit usage would be much encouraged if passengers were able to use SEPTA card for subway, buses, light rail, bike sharing, Uber/Lyft payment and even shopping at convenient stores around transit stations. Ticketing discounts should also be provided for long-haul and intermodal transit ridership. Physical integration (Vuchic, 1999, p.296) of the Multi-modal systemsshould also be addressed, so passengers connectfrom subways, trains to buses and bicycle services in a fast and safe way. Detailed design around transit locations would be crucial. For example, stations around City Hall should provide weather-proof corridors with shelters and landscaping to improve walking experience. (Figure 1)
Enhancing Commercial-oriented Mixed Uses and Compact City
The physical integration of transit stations should be closely related to the functionality of an urban core. A better walking experience around the transit center can be achieved by strategies to bring in mixed land uses and growth with compact. Policy makers should release restrictions on development and uses around transit stations. Such relaxation includes building height and density, building alterations and use of the pedestrians and open space connected to major transit stations. As a result, developers would be willing to enhance density around the transit stations and renew and redevelop the building clusters. Various activities would be allowed include street vendor, performances, gatherings and exhibitions etc. Detailed urban design should further encourage such activities to provide locations for stay. Therefore, TOD mode should serve as a catalyst to interweave organic urban form consisting of vibrant public-initiative activities.
Meanwhile, major transit companies such as SEPTA should lead the “organizational integration” (Vuchic, 1999, p.295) and expand its role beyond transitmanagementto involve property and events management. Convenient stores and small retailers could be brought in around transit stations, where as mentioned earlier, an integrated smart ticketing system could be involved. Such organizational integration would benefit social activities, a better walkable streetscape, and in the end contributing to a holistic urban and social organism. (Figures 2)
Leveraging Social Initiated Events and Services Last but not least, 2020 witnessed social, political and environmental catastrophes leading towards structural changes in the U.S. and the world. Cities as engines for social movements should continue serving as platformsfor civic participation and exhibition, in forms of art, creativity and opinion expression. Philadelphia, therefore,should promote the TODmode as a catalyst to enhance the social tie to the community. TOD mode would further catalyze possible public and private partnerships between transit companies, developers and community initiated entrepreneurial services. This is because “free-lancers and micro-entrepreneurs”would “diverse mass transit” (Cervero, 2001, p.17). With proper regulations such as licencing, areas close to mass transit stations should allow small vendors and performers to stay. Such “open, free-ranging transportation marketplace” conceives “indigenous forms of entrepreneurial transit” (Cervero, 2001, p.17) which if successfully implemented, would become new media for the public and artists to tell stories, create, and express opinions.(Figure 3)
Despite the critique of TOD and commercial-oriented mixed uses that could accelerate gentrification and replacement. In the post-pandemic era, Philadelphia should leverage economic growth by enhancing the city’s circulation and vibrancy by attracting more population and have them around the public domain. The emergence of community initiated entrepreneurial services would further balance the negative impacts to disadvantaged groups in the city because of urban gentrification.

Conclusion
In conclusion, to facilitate Philadelphia’s TOD plan, policy makers should regulate private cars in city, balance traffic by alternative outside freeway networks, and build up organic urban clusters around mass transit stations with mixed uses and community-initiated activities. This is crucial for the post- pandemic revitalization since population and economy would be the critical enginesfor a city’s recovery from disasters.

Reference
Cervero, R. (2001). Informal Transit: Learning from the Developing World. Access, 18, 12–16.
Vuchic, V. (1999). Transportation for livable cities. New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research (Chapters 2 and 7).