COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON STREETS AND SERVICES - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:25 p.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILMAN FRANK DiCICCO, CHAIR COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN JUAN RAMOS COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILMAN DANIEL SAVAGE BILLS 060852, 060893, 060896, 060897, 060929, 060930, 060931, 060932, 060933, 060935, 060937, 060938, 060941, 060960, 070045 and 070046 - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2 COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Good morning, everyone. I apologize for the delay. I think obviously you know why it's getting started a little bit later than normal. I'm the Chair of the Streets and Services Committee. My name is Frank DiCicco. To my immediate left is the Council President, Anna Verna. To her left is Councilman Rizzo and to my right is Councilman Clarke. We do have a quorum. The Council President by virtue of her title is a member of all committees. So we do have a quorum. I'll ask the Clerk to read the title of the first bill.
Bill No. 070046, an ordinance authorizing and directing the revision of lines and grades on a portion of City Plan Nos. 11-S, 42, 43, 97, 269 and 308 by placing on the City Plan South Street from its current terminus northwest of the northwesterly Pierhead and Bulkhead Line of the Schuylkill River 3 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. to the northwesterly Pierhead and Bulkhead Line of the Schuylkill River, widening South Street by eight feet on the northeasterly side from 32nd Street to the northwesterly Pierhead and Bulkhead Line of the Schuylkill River, widening South Street on the southwesterly side by eight feet from Convention Avenue to the northwesterly Pierhead and Bulkhead Line of the Schuylkill River, placing a certain triangular portion of the westerly corner of Convention Avenue and South Street, placing a certain triangular portion at the intersection of the southwesterly side of South Street and the southeasterly side of the CSX Railroad Right-of-Way line, by widening the northeasterly side of South Street by a variable width from the southeasterly Pierhead and Bulkhead Line of the Schuylkill River to a point approximately 254 feet west of the westerly side of 27th Street and by placing a 30-foot-wide 4 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. and variable width right-of-way for drainage purposes on the southwesterly side of South Street southeast of the southeasterly Pierhead and Bulkhead Line of the Schuylkill River. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Good morning. Before you begin, excuse me. Just for the record, let the record reflect that Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller is present. She's also a member of the Streets and Services Committee. Thank you. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is Frank Morelli, Survey Bureau Manager of the Department of Streets, and the Department of Streets would like to offer the following testimony on Bill No. 070046. This is an Administrative ordinance requested by the Department of Streets. 5 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. The purpose of this ordinance 3 is to widen South Street. South Street is a major thoroughfare and one of the few streets that crosses the Schuylkill River. The street is currently only 80-feet wide with a 44-foot-wide cartway. With traffic volumes constantly increasing, South Street is of insufficient size to handle the current traffic, let alone future levels. As part of the upgrade of South Street, a new bridge will be constructed, and both the bridge and its approaches will be widened by eight feet on either side. There will also be a pedestrian walkway and a bicycle lane on each side. This ordinance is supported by the Department of Streets and is recommended to your Committee for favorable action. The Streets Department respectfully requests a suspension of the rules. Thank you.
Good morning, 6 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Chairman, members of the Streets and Services Committee. My name is Martin Soffer, Director of the Development Planning Division, and I'm here to testify on behalf of the City Planning Commission. The purpose of this ordinance 9 is to allow for the reconstruction of the South Street Bridge. The Planning Commission recommended approval to the widening and the placement of South Street on the City Plan at its meeting on December 19th, 2006. Therefore, the Planning Commission recommends that Bill 16 No. 070046 be approved. Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Charles Denny. I'm the Acting Chief Traffic Engineer of the Department of Streets and I'm here to offer testimony on Bill No. 25 070046. 7 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. South Street is a City street that crosses the Schuylkill River, the I-76 Expressway and several railroad lines on the bridge, which is scheduled to be replaced. Members of the Streets Department attended a community meeting last month in which several attendees had concerns about safety of pedestrian and bicycles crossing the I-76 ramps. We had met with the Bicycle Coalition during the design phase of the bridge and addressed their concerns they had with the bridge. After hearing the comments of the community at last month's meeting, we determined we could make some adjustments in traffic control on the bridge. They are as follows: We can provide lead pedestrian intervals, LPI, in the signalization. We have these at a number of intersections in West Philadelphia and Center City. The LPIs are a time increment in which the pedestrian is given a walk signal before motor vehicles receive the green to turn 8 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. across the pedestrian crosswalk at the given green signal. This allows the pedestrians to get a head start in the crosswalk before the vehicles start turning across the crosswalk. Two, we will be using pedestrian countdown signals at the intersection of I-76 and South Street to assist pedestrians in knowing how much time is left for their crossing. Three, we will be moving the stop bar for motor vehicles back ten feet from where the stop bar for bicycles, which will give the bicyclists a head start and also improve the visibility of bicyclists to turning motor vehicles. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and I and the rest of us will be happy to answer any questions. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Thank you. Any questions for these witnesses?
Yes, 9 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. please. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Council President.
Firstly, I would like to thank everybody from the community who has shown great interest in this particular bill for coming today with such nasty weather. I know how important this is to the community, and hopefully today we can have more dialogue so that we hopefully can move forward. To the gentlemen I would ask, what percentage of funds is the City of Philadelphia putting into this project?
Council President, this project is a $50 million reconstruction project funded by 80 percent federal funds, 15 percent state funds and a five percent City match.
Can you tell us what are the ramifications to the reconstruction project if in fact City Council fails to act on these bills 10 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. within the next few weeks?
Council President, our Chief Bridge Engineer, Jack Lutz, is also here to answer more detailed questions about the bridge and I'd like to give him an opportunity to answer these questions.
All right. We'll have Mr. Lutz come up. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Mr. Lutz, just pull up a chair. Why don't you just add an extra chair, fellows. This way you don't have to keep getting up. Thank you.
My name is John Lutz. I'm the Chief Bridge Engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Streets. The question was about what ramifications would it be to the reconstruction? It would delay the reconstruction. We need to have this 11 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. ordinance passed in order to make the offers to the various parcel owners as part of the right-of-way clearance. If we do not get right-of-way clearance, we do not get authorization to advertise for the bridge construction.
So what would it matter if it were delayed a few weeks?
It would delay it a few weeks. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: I have a question. Would we be jeopardizing in any way any of the funding from any of the entities if it were delayed another few weeks? Federal, state. Not our money. Obviously our money is our money, but federal, state money, would that be in jeopardy?
A few weeks, no, I don't believe so. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Is there a date which there's that chance that we would lose any of the state and/or 12 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. federal funding?
I couldn't make that call as to how long we delay this before federal and state funds are retracted. I couldn't make that call. I couldn't speak for the federal and state.
And wouldn't somebody from PennDOT be able to answer that question? Would you come up to the table, please.
Yes. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Good morning, sir. Please identify yourself for the record.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Charles Davies. I'm the Acting Assistant District Executive for Design at PennDOT District 6. 13 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. The question is about jeopardizing funding. The South Street Bridge project is a significant part of our business plan for lettings this year. We have goals that we have identified in dollar terms and in terms of the amount of square footage of structurally deficient bridge deck area that we are trying to get improved in this area. Pennsylvania has a very poor standing among the 50 states in terms of its bridge condition, and in our region, South Street Bridge is a considerable part of that. The funding for South Street Bridge, if it is not used in this calendar year, may be necessary to be used as a source for funding for other City projects since we are so fiscally constrained in our let schedule. So we have many bids coming in over estimates. Commodity prices have risen quite a bit over the last year and we have had to constantly move money around between 14 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. projects in order to cover those costs. So the answer to your question is that that $50 million, while fully funded at this time, is in time a diminishing amount of money in terms of its buying power and may be needed to be used as a source for other funds that the City would let. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: I have to leave. The Vice-Chair of the Committee, Councilman Ramos, is here, who will take over on my behalf. I think Councilman Rizzo had a question.
My question probably would point towards the Streets Commissioner. As you know -- and this is an accessory to the South Street Bridge issue, but I met with Secretary Allen Biehler of PennDOT and identified the fact that I think we all know when we come westbound on the Expressway, the issue with the merge from the South Street merging into the fast lane, and the Secretary assured me in my office 15 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. with Rina Cutler that they would look at that very seriously and not just blow it off like they initially did, that it was just too expensive to fix. So if there's any update from PennDOT on that look, I'd appreciate it. Something needs to be done, even if it's not a hundred percent. It's got to get better westbound.
What we've done, Councilman, is at your request hire an engineering firm to do a study of the matter. It would be a study that would identify all the major items that would be necessary to undertake such a project, what all the impacts would be. It would identify the issues. It would not make a final recommendation as to whether or not such a project should be undertaken. That really would need to become a regional priority with our planning partners, but it would identify issues so that we could all make the decisions with all the information at hand. 16 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
I've seen a first draft of it. I'm hoping to have the next draft within the next few weeks, at which time we would make it available to you and be available for any questions you might have about it.
Because I would like hopefully -- and knowing you guys are very good at this, you do coordinate as well as you can. So if there's going to be a disruption at that location, possibly if there is even minor alterations that can make that a better situation, that I hope it would be on the same track with the rest of this project.
I think the report, without giving too much away, will identify this as a major effort, a very significant amount of construction, certainly a significant amount of money and a lot of technical issues associated with this. It is a constrained area. 17 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. There is a lot of structure involved. The stretch of the 76 Expressway between South and University Avenue is on structure and it's not on pavement, which makes it quite difficult.
Even some of the technology, I know that you use these metering lights -- I've seen them on 476 -- that hold the traffic on the ramp, because many people merging on at that point -- something needs to be done and I don't know what, but hopefully you'll come up with something that's affordable.
Like I said, the report, we're hoping, is available in the next few weeks.
Thank you. 18 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. I believe it was sometime last year I had requested a traffic study be conducted for the entire area. Can you tell me if we have a traffic study completed?
We have not completed the study at this point, but we have attached a scope of work for the study mentioned, and we plan to amend an existing contract with the traffic engineering consultant. This will allow us to start work much sooner than releasing an RFP. The time is of importance since we want to have the traffic counts conducted before the South Street Bridge closes for reconstruction. Data collection should be done in the spring or the fall, and we want to be able to start the data collection this spring and complete the report and findings by the end of the year.
So actually if we were to approve this bill, then reconstruction would be in progress 19 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. and we don't know what the traffic study would be showing, correct?
Well, we would have an idea based on the data collection that we started this spring what's going on there right now in terms of traffic conditions out there before the bridge closed.
Can you tell us if the Art Commission has approved the design of this bridge?
I believe the Art Commission has approved. They have not yet sent a letter to the Streets Department yet.
One of my constituents called and said for safety consideration they feel that a barrier should be installed between the cars and the bicycle lane. Is that possible?
That was looked at during the design of the bridge. It was determined it would have a negative 20 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. effect on the operation of the bicyclist. The question is whether to put the bicyclist in front of the barrier or behind the barrier.
If you have a barrier and cars are going in a certain direction, I don't think the bicyclist would be in the lane where the cars are --
This is a standard City street crossing the river, the expressway and the railroads, and on a standard City street, the traffic is in the middle, the bicycles are to the right before the curb and then the pedestrians are on the sidewalk, and there are generally no barriers on most City streets. And, again, South Street is a City street.
Well, 21 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. I think a street is different than a bridge. You have an incline, you have a decline. I think it's much different than a regular City street.
Well, there are regular City streets that have inclines and declines. And it is a regular City street crossing the river, crossing the expressways and crossing the railroads, and the standard design is the motor vehicle is in the middle, the bicycle in the bicycle lanes and the pedestrians on the side, and this works very effectively and very well. The barrier creates a whole lot of problems with potential people hitting them and the problem if the bicycle falls hitting the barrier and whether the barrier is between the pedestrians and the bicyclist or between -- then the bicyclist is, to a certain extent, trapped on the roadway side of it. If it's on the other side, the bicyclist may ride on the sidewalk mixing in with the 22 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. pedestrians, which creates another hazard. Using the standard approach, which is the motor vehicles in the middle, the bicycle lanes on the side and then the pedestrians, works well and has worked well. We have this arrangement on the Spring Garden Street Bridge and that works very effectively up there.
Can you tell me what the present size of a pedestrian walkway is and also the present width of the bicycle paths?
Our standard bicycle path widths are five feet. There's a few places where they are six feet wide, and that's generally because we have extra width on the roadway that we want to eat up and reduce the travel lanes to either 11 or 10 feet, so that we would put extra width in the bicycle lane. But generally most of our bicycle lanes are five feet width. Pedestrian sidewalks -- 23 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
And how big will they be here? Will it be five feet for the bicycles?
The walkways are about nine feet. Most sidewalks are between 10 and feet, although there 12 are some like along Market Street and Broad Street where they go up to 20 feet in width. The sidewalks on the South Street Bridge since they don't have any buildings facing them, there is no 18 encroachments from those buildings. Also, all the poles will be located behind the sidewalk so there is no 21 additional obstruction by poles in the sidewalk so that you have a full nine-foot width available for the sidewalk, and then the sidewalk is separated from the moving motor vehicle 24 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. by the five-foot-wide bike lane.
Can you tell me if Penn is supporting this project?
Question for PennDOT. Can you tell the Committee why the ramps were not redesigned as a part of this project?
I can tell you the decision was made a number of years ago, almost ten years ago. The problem at hand on this project to solve was the condition of the South Street Bridge. And while it may be undesirable in a lot of ways for the ramps to remain as they are, it was considered then -- and it certainly is true now -- that this would be a major undertaking. There are certain locations where almost any place where we draw a line between where a project begins and stops seems arbitrary. It becomes a 25 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. matter of the degree of the severity of the problem that everyone is trying to solve. And far and away, the condition of the South Street Bridge is worse than the undesirability of the ramps, or at least it was considered so then.
In some ways wouldn't you agree that it may even be better to leave the ramps the way they are for the specific purpose of reducing the number of trucks that travel this way?
We intend all of our facilities to be fully functional, so --
-- that would not be a reason why we would leave it in place. But one issue that has been identified by people who have looked at this is that the ramps as they are in Center City on the Expressway are really very close together. So to bring any one 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. set of them up to standards would really have to take all of them into account, and it is conceivable that they would not all work as a system, that traffic weave patterns would be set up that are every bit as dangerous as left-handed merges. I believe this issue will be touched on in the report, as well as some accident data.
I know that Ms. Cutler was in my office last week and she talked about how important it was to move forward with this project, and she said it is her position that the South Street Bridge would be closed one way or the other. She indicated that the day that she was in the office they actually were out there doing some repair work because, as I said, it's an extremely dangerous, dangerous situation. Would you elaborate on that, please? Because it was her feeling that they would have to close the bridge 27 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. whether there were reconstruction or not.
I'm an engineer and so I use words like "dangerous" and "unsafe" advisedly. The bridge has a very low weight restriction that was put on it by the City Streets Department, and we have reviewed their work and we agree with that weight restriction. It is quite low, indicating a structure that is in very poor condition. I think the concern that Ms. Cutler was raising was that given this bridge has deteriorated to such a degree, its further service on a very short-time basis really can't be relied upon and that the Streets Department, the City, would have to be prepared for any sudden action that might need to be taken given an incident related to its poor condition. Pieces, chunks of concrete have fallen onto the Expressway. There have been openings in the deck. It's obvious that members are severely rusted and deteriorated. Its load-carrying 28 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. capacity has been, as indicated by the weight restriction, severely compromised, and there are even problems on the bridge. I know that the City Streets Department is concerned about it. They don't really lend themselves to a very detailed sort of analysis. So there's a lot of uncertainty there, and for such a major facility to be in that condition is truly a concern for the City Streets Department and for PennDOT as well.
Does the Streets Department wish to add anything to that testimony?
John Lutz, Chief Bridge Engineer. In answer to your question, Council President, the Streets Department, the Bridge Maintenance Unit is continuously monitoring the condition of the bridge to make sure that it's as safe as possible. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking on this bridge where we 29 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. are doing the correct thing in replacing this bridge with a new structure. Its service life is coming to an end.
Thank you. I just want for the record to go back to the financial aspects of the project, the ramps especially, away from the bridge for a moment. For the record, PennDOT has spent a tremendous amount of money on making improvements to egress to interstate highways in the Commonwealth. An example, King of Prussia. Obviously a very expensive project. Route 309, I can't even imagine how much money has been spent in making improvements for traffic flow and for safety. I understand that money has to be a part of your consideration, but I don't think the people that drive that 30 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. roadway and try to access the Expressway in a safe way really truly want to hear that it's about money, and I don't want to honestly hear that it's about money. If it's an engineering impossibility, I can understand that, but because it's going to be a $25 million project, I think that we need to figure out how to get the money to make it work.
Councilman, I suppose I've emphasized money this morning because that's very much an issue for us at the moment. But there are a number of challenges that the report will identify, just the basic geometry of the site being primarily among them. You have tracks, you have the Expressway and you have the river. And it would be quite a feat to go and change the location of the ramps on the Expressway.
I understand. That I can take. I just can't take the part that, Well, we could do this, but we have a project over here 31 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. that's more important than this one. That really isn't what my constituents want to hear.
Fine. I understand the engineering aspects of it, and, again, after reviewing the report, I'll probably, from what I hear from you, is that I'll probably buy into it, but maybe not. Thank you.
Thank you very much. As all of you know, we've had several meetings with Penn, and Penn does support the project, but my question is in talking with members of the community, because we have to have the community meetings, can you show me -- I admit I'm not the best person when it comes to maps, but we need to know where the 32 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. pedestrian walkway and the bike lane are, whether they're on these maps, and if not, can you produce something for me that we can take around to community meetings, because that will be issues for the students at Penn and Drexel and for members of the community. Can you do that for me?
Yes, we can. We do have a cross-section of the bridge, which shows the location of the bicycle lanes and the sidewalks with the existing bridge and then with the proposed bridge.
We have sidewalks that are on the side, the bike lanes are adjacent to the sidewalks, and in the middle there is two travel lanes in each direction, and then at the ramps, there's left-turn lanes onto the ramps.
All right. Would you make that available for the President as well as myself? And 33 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. then we will have what we need for community meetings, because that will be a major issue for the university communities. Thank you.
I want to acknowledge that Councilman Savage has joined us today and this Committee. Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller.
Thank you. This is not my district and I certainly haven't been involved in meetings, but I used to use this bridge almost every day. How long is this project?
The construction time for this project is estimated at 18 months.
So will 34 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. the total bridge be closed?
Is there an alternative route? How are people going to get from one side to the other? I was just sitting here trying to figure that out.
Primarily we use Chestnut Street and Walnut Street, the 23rd and 22nd Street on one side and 33rd and 34th Street on the other side.
Thank you. If in fact this bill were to be approved, when would reconstruction start?
We're shooting for a letting towards the end of this year with construction to start a little over a 35 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. year from now, in early spring of next year.
Any further questions from members of this Committee? (No response.)
Seeing no 11 further questions, thank you to this panel for presenting your testimony here in this hearing.
I think we have members of the community here. May I suggest that you all stay so if there are questions that the community may have that you can respond to, I think that would be very helpful.
Gentlemen, hold up just for one minute. I recognize 36 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller.
Yes. I'd like to know what are the federal and state requirements for inclusion and workforce diversity and has that been discussed?
We have standard DBE provisions in our construction contracts, and those will certainly be part of this one.
Or what are they, do you know, off the top of your head?
I don't happen to know off the top of my head what the percentages are. In fact, I believe that they've been changing recently, but we can make those available to you.
Okay. Can you make them available to the Chair, and he'll make sure that I get those? 37 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
Thank you for your testimony. Is there anyone else from the City or PennDOT that needs to testify? If not, we do not have a listing of community groups and community representatives that want to testify here today, so I will ask you to be as prudent as possible and come forward, any community groups and individuals. Just three at a time, Madam President, would that be fine?
Thank you for coming here this morning on this icy wintry day. Please each one of you, whoever wants to come first to testify, just please identify yourself, and if you want to identify an organization that you represent, please do so for the record. 38 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
My name is Alex Soroka. I'm the Democratic Committee person that feeds right off of the South Street West Center City area. I'm a member of the South Street West Civic Association. I've been attending these bridge meetings for over ten years. I've been at all of them. Most of them have not given a lot of information. We've been given feedback about the ramps from the very beginning, and entering into the fast lane was a major concern. We've been asking for traffic studies from the beginning, because this is a very heavily biked and pedestrian-traveled bridge, and for all of us that travel this bridge every day, it's a fear for your life. I've stopped taking the onramps to the bridge 15 years ago because the only way you can ever get on the road is you ride down, you hit 60 miles an hour and you hope there's an opening at the bottom of the ramp that you could fit in as you get 39 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. down to the bottom. So that's totally unacceptable as a thing, and we probably still look hard at trying to do that. Because it's a heavily pedestrian and bike-friendly bridge, we've talked about -- I mean, the design of the bridge is fine. We all know the bridge needs to be fixed. It's fine. But we also talked about creating ramps that would move up over the entrance and entrance ramps to the things so that we could actually get the pedestrians off of the face of the bridge, which leaves more room for traffic. As far as the -- at the last community meeting, the renderings that were presented to the community were very abstract and really there's not a good rendering on how they're planning on constructing and building the bridge. They really -- they're telling us -- I did little pencil sketches on how it moves from one lane to the left and you create it -- my little sketches with how 40 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. they explained how the bridge works was better than the drawings that they presented to the community. And that little cross-section that they're going to show to you is, again, not a good rendering on how the bridge is going to work for the community to even make a good decision. I said enough.
Thank you. If you don't mind, is there someone here that can address Mr. Soroka's concerns? Please come forward.
The traffic data, the accident data that will be cited in the report that we are putting together will show that there have not been fatalities for the last five years at least on any of the South Street ramps. It will show that there are a greater number of relatively minor accidents at those locations than the other ramps on 41 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. the Expressway in Center City, but the pattern is for minor accidents and not major and life-threatening ones.
Mr. Soroka, do you think that answers your question?
That does not answer -- I mean, I exit on the bridge every day. I do exit the bridge, and I do see -- I constantly see accidents at the beginning on the -- as the people are trying to head north onto the Schuylkill or actually west since it's a 76 street number. So there's always accidents there. And the lights again at the top of the bridge get stopped, and if we start -- one of my concerns is, if we start to extend the light traffic on the tops of the bridge to allow pedestrians to walk by, there are times now when there's like -- the light changes, you have four cars that they're allowed to make a left-hand turn off of South Street for every light change. If you start to 42 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. extend the time so people can walk across it, you're going to start having cars backing up onto the Schuylkill ramp eventually, because it's not going to allow enough time. At 5 o'clock you're almost down to the Schuylkill as it stands when you start getting off, and there's always accidents there.
Well, we have someone else who would like to address your issues.
Yes. Concerning the traffic signal that will be at the top of the new ramp, we will --
Concerning the traffic signal that will be at the top of the new ramp at the South Street Bridge, we will be putting video detection cameras on the signals there and detecting traffic queues down the ramp so that we can adjust the signal timing to clear the ramps out in order to not back 43 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. traffic up into the Expressway itself. We will have flexibility in the timing to make those adjustments as traffic -- if there's surges of traffic coming off the Expressway onto the ramps, that we can give more time to the ramps themselves.
Then that circumvents the pedestrian and bikeways. If they're going to have video cameras that change the signal time, the pedestrians are going to be running across the South Street Bridge, as they are now, for safety.
There will be minimum times that will service both the pedestrians and the bicyclists traveling across that intersection. So they will be serviced. There is more than sufficient time for the pedestrians to walk across the ramp with the timing we have. So there is some adjustments that we can make to give additional green time to the ramps when necessary.
Is there still a 44 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. chance that we could with the current design, which is fine, but just taking the ramps and moving them up?
Well, we have to -- there is one facility that sits on the South Street Bridge, which is Hollenback Hall, which we have to service with a sidewalk. To take pedestrians over the ramp, we have to take the pedestrians up an additional 20, feet vertically. To 12 do so with ADA ramps, we're going to have 13 to take the ramps back essentially to the 14 far side of the bridge, and we're not 15 going to be able to get them back down 16 again to go underneath the high-rise -- 17 the high line, Conrail line, because of 18 the distance, which means you either -- 19 you can't go right into the high line, so 20 you either got to go then up above the 21 high line because we're not going to be 22 able to go down and get back to the deck 23 level by the time you reach the high 24 line, which if you're going over the high 25 line, you're going to be going up an 45 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. additional 50 feet into the air. And even with the feet, I think most 4 people would choose to use the sidewalk 5 or the crosswalk that is at street level 6 and not use a ramp that takes you up an 7 additional 20 feet or 25 feet above the 8 roadway, because that is an additional 9 amount of work to get up there. 10
I would like 11 to intervene, and the question may be to 12 PennDOT or the City. You stated that 13 there had been no fatal accidents over 14 the South Street Bridge in five years and 15 that there were minor accidents on the 16 exit and -- correct me if I'm misstating 17 what I've heard, and there have been 18 minor accidents in the exit ramps. 19 Have you compared the fatality 20 rate and the minor accident rate to other 21 bridges in the City and see how did that 22 compare? Is it higher at the South 23 Street Bridge versus any of our other 24 bridges? 25
Not in the City. 46 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. We did make a comparison among the bridges in the immediate vicinity from, I believe, Spring Garden -- from South to Spring Garden and -- I'm sorry. I'm doing this from memory, but the pattern of minor accidents at the South Street onramps for westbound Schuylkill Expressway are -- numerically there are more of them than on the other ramps going in the same direction from the other streets, but all the accident data that I cited were onramp accidents.
How about other bridges, even crossing over into Jersey? I mean, have you done -- just being able to cross over a bridge that either connects us from one part of the City to the other or from one part of the City into another state. Did you do that type of --
We didn't do that comparison in this particular report. We just thought the most --
How do you 47 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. think it compares? Is it --
There's no 4 question that this is an undesirable situation, but there's also some question as to whether or not a repositioning would solve the problem or begin to have traffic interfere with the other ramps up and down the Expressway in ways that do not exist now, setting up weave patterns of people leaving ramps and coming onto the -- leaving the Expressway and coming on. Those patterns would be set up in ways that don't exist now and might create an equally problematic situation. That would all have to be studied in detail.
Thank you. The next witness, please state your name. MR. McGETTIGAN: My name is Michael McGettigan, a life-long Philadelphian, most of my life in Southwest Philadelphia. I'm the co-owner of Trophy Bikes, University City, at 3131 48 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Walnut Street and the father of a ten-year-old Masterman student, who is here today, one B, the rest A's. One issue was brought up of fatalities, and fatalities and crashes are not the only measure of traffic design. When I was ten years old, I rode my bike from 47th and Springfield with a PTC map -- that's Philadelphia Transportation Company -- and used it to get to City Hall. I wouldn't dare let my ten-year-old son do that today based on the way traffic and the design of the City is centered around automobiles, which is what these gentlemen were trained to do in a previous century and what they do very well. The problem here is really the wrong people are here today. These gentlemen know how to move cars and trucks very fast. There really should be someone from City Planning to discuss what the role of the South Street Bridge is in this coming century. The City's 49 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. population is much smaller. We're very well served by transit. We are seeing every day on the TV screens the results of an oil-based economy, and for some reason, this bridge is being built to serve an enormous number of cars. And this isn't a formal traffic study, but I took this photograph at 9:12 this Monday at the peak of the rush hour and it's a little distant, but there's six automobiles in it and two pedestrians and it was a 25-degree day. I'll leave these photos here. So I question whether we need a $50 million bridge to move such a small number of automobiles. They're gold-plating it. We've also seen the results of -- since I run a business, I've been on Walnut Street for more than two years now, and I've seen PennDOT and what has happened after they built the very efficient high-speed car-centered pedestrian-ignoring bridge, and the 50 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. result has been a series of total automobiles. I don't spend any special time looking for these crashes. I see one per month on the Walnut Street Bridge. These cars were both parked and were demolished by speeding cars on Walnut Street. This bicycle under there was parked to a parking meter. Fortunately there was no cyclist on it, nor were the or 30 kids that run daycare that go 13 along that sidewalk present at the time 14 that this vehicle demolished a BMW SUV 15 and three other automobiles. 16 So this is ten years after the 17 Walnut Street Bridge has been built, and 18 this is basically the way that bridge is 19 functioning at this time, with narrow 20 sidewalks, the ten-foot interstate highway-style lanes. A lot of people remember the Crosstown Expressway, which the defeat was really a great victory for Philadelphia. It brought us the South 51 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Street renaissance and basically may have saved us from becoming Detroit. This new bridge for South Street is exactly the same as the bridge that they were going to use to connect to the South Street Expressway. It's a South Street Expressway bridge, but the times have changed. On both sides of it we have the University of Pennsylvania, where percent of the students, the 12 undergraduates, live in Southwest Center 13 City, and we have an up-and-coming 14 Southwest Center City neighborhood. But 15 none of that was taken into account by 16 these gentlemen. They merely built a 17 bridge to get people onto the Expressway 18 as fast as possible. 19
Is there 20 someone here from the City Planning 21 Commission? I believe on the first panel 22 there was someone. 23 MR. McGETTIGAN: Is anything 24 changing to make Walnut Street safer? 25
There was a 52 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. question here. Can the person from the City Planning Commission come forward, please. Michael, would you restate your question concerning the Planning Commission? MR. McGETTIGAN: Yes. What assurances do we -- basically, the new South Street Bridge looks very much like the current Walnut Street Bridge and I don't see any real amenities for pedestrians. We're getting about a foot additional on the sidewalks. We are getting a bike lane, but we're required to do a very complex merge on the bridge, and it seems as though the entire bridge is being made to serve the onramps of the Expressway, which everyone is in agreement are among the worst in the City. I would suggest that we close the onramps. The population is lower. We have ramps serving it everywhere, and this is no longer a deserted service area for University of Penn or a relatively 53 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. empty neighborhood. You have two thriving neighborhoods, and this should be seen as a City street, not some kind of Expressway entrance.
City Planning Commission. Please state your name again for the record.
My name is Martin Soffer. I'm Director of the Development Division of the City Planning Commission. First, the City Planning Commission has been among those groups in the vanguard to accommodate every mode of transportation within the City. This is with a promotion of greenways, lanes for bicycles and this is along the waterfront and within the inner City itself. I guess specifically in the case of the South Street Bridge, it's in a dangerous situation. It needs to be replaced. And as part of that effort to accommodate all modes of transportation, where the original bridge had one lane for bikes, we now have two, one on each 54 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. side. As to the engineering aspects with the ramps, I would defer that piece of it to somebody that's more qualified in the engineering section of the Streets Department.
Councilman Rizzo, you have a follow-up question for Marty from the Planning Commission?
Yes, I do, or to someone on the panel. That's the first time I've heard a consideration of closing it. Has PennDOT, in your memory, ever closed and is that one of the considerations that the report would reveal, and what would the, I guess, impact be if both of those ramps were eliminated?
A detailed examination of what the effects would be of closure of those ramps on the neighborhood's traffic patterns, et cetera, is outside the scope of that particular paper that we're putting 55 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. together. That's just going to identify issues in a general way. It is certainly an alternative that could be studied if a project was undertaken to either replace or to reconfigure the ramps in some way. I mean, no build and a teardown is always an alternate that is discussed, but it would be a significant change to traffic patterns in the area and it would have to be done in full consideration of all the effects.
Yeah. I'm not sure that Michael is done, but let me just say that my --
I'm sorry. Michael, are you done with your testimony? If not, please forgive me. You can proceed. You can wrap it up. MR. McGETTIGAN: My final 56 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. wrap-up here would be, I don't have ten years on this, probably about eight years of coming to various Streets and PennDOT things, and I will note that very few of the changes we've asked for in the Walnut Street Bridge have been accomplished. I would say that Planning has been asleep at the switch for the entire bridge. They really have not been a presence at most of the meetings of any real -- showing any kind of effort. And I really wouldn't expect these gentlemen to do anything like close down an onramp. I didn't say to close the offramps. Those are useful and they function, but the onramp is proven dangerous, and they've said they can't increase the capacity. So I think closing it should be seen as a realistic option. I also think as observation is, the Streets Department and PennDOT have frequently used this tactic of letting a bridge or a facility deteriorate to the point where it's a public hazard and then 57 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. painting anyone who attempts to change it for the better as an obstructionist. They did that in Chestnut Hill in the bridge between Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy, and only reluctantly were dragged into a modern bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly bridge. I submit on this they're going to do the same thing and basically go, This is all we have time for, we're out of time, we just had to do it. I think the engineering underneath, I believe their bridge will stay up. My only beef is with the top 12 inches and how it is divided up, and I think that's an easy redesign. It will also be quicker to do than the bridge they want to do, which is wider in the middle just for turning lanes. So that will minimize disruption to real estate in the area, because a lot of people who rent to Penn students, their rents are going to go down. You already have one failed real estate project, South Bridge, 58 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. with Switzenbaum's project. I believe those people have seen how much disruption the South Street Bridge is going to take and how long it's going to take, and that building has now pulled the plug on the Venturi design and it's just sitting. They've closed their sales office. And I lay that at the feet of the Streets Department and PennDOT for taking so long to do this bridge. Let's not stall. Let's do it right, but let's not stall. Thank you.
Yes, one comment. The bicycle lanes on the South Street Bridge have been there since the beginning of the design of the bridge, as has been the pedestrian --
I'm sorry. I don't think the witness heard what you said, neither did I.
I said bicycle 59 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. lanes have been on the design of the South Street Bridge since the beginning of the South Street Bridge. Also, in terms of the Walnut Street Bridge, we have added bike lanes to that bridge after it was completed a few years ago. So we have made changes to both the Walnut Street Bridge and to the South Street Bridge. From the beginning we've had bike lanes on there. The lane widths on the South Street Bridge are ten and a half feet. The standard had been for a minimum lane width of 11 feet on bridges where federal money was being applied. We have gotten an exception to go with a smaller lane. The effect of the widening of the lanes does not affect any real estate purchases, because those turning lanes do not exist at either end of the bridge where it touches down at Convention Avenue or at 27th Street. 27th Street, the configuration is the same. It's two lanes eastbound, one lane westbound. 60 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. We've added the bike lanes and the sidewalks are there. On the other end at Convention Avenue, we have two lanes eastbound, two lanes westbound, plus bike lanes, which the only real difference on both ends of the bridge where we are needing additional real estate is we have added bike lanes and the sidewalks are slightly wider.
Hold on for a second. Michael, are you done with your testimony? MR. McGETTIGAN: Actually, your statement about bike lanes being in the South Street Bridge design from the beginning is simply not true. The Bicycle Coalition had to have many meetings and apply much pressure to do so, and less than two years ago, the Streets Department removed the bike lanes from the bridge plan and created a wider 61 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. south sidewalk where they were asking bicyclists and pedestrians to share a sidewalk, in violation of city, state and federal best practices, and they stayed with that. Your colleague, Joe Syrnick, who is now head of Schuylkill River Development Corp, personally said to me, Mike, can you think I can actually make cyclists safe on that bridge with traffic? They belong on the sidewalk. And that plan was sketched up and shown to community meetings, and only after numerous wastes of time by Alex Doty here from the Bicycle Coalition and many elected officials were we able to remove that plan, which was actually a severe liability for the Streets Department because you are no longer allowed to put a sidewalk in a designated shared bike and ped. It's simply illegal and unsafe, and your own department was pitching that. It wasted a huge amount of time turning that wrong thinking around. Now we're back to square one. 62 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Please don't take credit for things that the Bike Coalition and these people have put in the plans.
It was initially in the plans. There were some changes because people made comments, and some of the people within our department went along with those changes, not everybody did, but the final plan has the bike lanes back where the bike lanes were initially. MR. McGETTIGAN: That's a little better.
Mr. McGettigan, thank you for your testimony. Ms. Gillen. MR. McGETTIGAN: Watch this guy.
Thank you. Thanks very much for hearing us. Obviously we can't negotiate this bridge today. I mean, it's clear that there's some technical issues -- 63 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
Sure. My name is Terry Gillen. I'm the Democratic Ward Leader for the 30th Ward, which is where the bridge is. I'm the Democratic Committee person on the other side of Alex Soroka's division, a member of SOSNA and Center City Residents Association, and I've been working on this project longer than I care to remember. The problem here is, as the two previous speakers indicated, that there has not been sufficient public discussion around this. We have not had any public meetings in two years on this topic. Now, that actually may violate federal requirements, which do call for a certain number of meetings when you have substantial federal funds. And actually if this thing moves ahead, I'm going to look into that, and a number of people are looking into that, because the amount of changes and design that has happened 64 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. over the last several years with no 3 public input whatsoever is outrageous. And now it is, as someone just said, we are being shown these designs and these plans and told that if we don't go ahead and approve them today, that somehow we're sanctioning a death trap, and that's a position that we all should not be in. You can see that nothing will happen if we go back to the drawing board on this bridge. We will not lose federal funds, we will not lose state funds, and we may actually end up with a better product. And I would urge the Committee to put a hold to this project immediately and ask PennDOT and the Streets Department to sit down with the community and talk about some of the issues that have been raised. There has been completely inadequate public input. And, in fact, there was no public discussion, except for eight years ago, about the possibility of even a partial closure. I 65 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. mean, there are bridges that can be partially closed and worked on one half at a time, and I would submit that -- I'm sorry that Councilwoman Blackwell has left, but the disruption this is going to cause to the University of Pennsylvania and particularly the Penn Medical Center and CHOP where nurses and doctors use this bridge all the time to get back and forth to work is going to be staggering, and I think that's worthy of a public discussion. I want to raise one last issue that hasn't been raised, but this bridge design, with all due respect to the Streets Department, is ugly. It is ugly. I mean, we're taking a bridge that actually has some elegance to it and we're replacing it with a monstrosity. And there was an article in the Inquirer last week about how ugly it is. I urge you to read it. And, frankly, I don't think we should be taking public money, especially in a part of the City where 66 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Penn is about to pour billions of dollars into a property and we're building a park along Schuylkill River, and cover it with an ugly bridge. So anyway, I think this is all worthy of discussion. I think with a couple of months of negotiations we could rethink some of these issues, and I think there would be no downside, except that the gentlemen here will be not happy. But I think we've got to look at these issues. The ramp issue -- I mean, we're literally creating a bridge that will make it easier for cars to go onto the Schuylkill Expressway. Is that something we really want to be doing? And that's the fundamental change in this bridge, and narrowing the sidewalks so that people going back and forth will not have as much space. I mean, there's some fundamental design flaws with this bridge and I urge you strongly to tell the 67 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Streets Department to sit down with us. We're prepared to negotiate anywhere, any time and to meet on this topic. Thank you.
I'm sorry. I thought that the pedestrian walkways were being widened. Are they not?
The pedestrian walkway is widening about a foot, yes, from the existing, but, of course, the motor vehicle traffic is being moved away from the pedestrian walkway by five feet with the installation of the bike lanes. So it gives a feeling of having a slightly wider sidewalk when the motor vehicles are further away from the curb 68 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. line. Basically, South Street is a City street and it is crossing the river, the expressway and the railroad, and that's its primary function, is to carry South Street across. Secondary is the intersection with the ramps to the Expressway, which happen to be there. But the primary purpose of the bridge is to carry South Street across the river and connect the two sides of the river. That's the primary purpose. It's a City street, like I stated earlier, and that's what we consider it, a City street, crossing the river with an intersection with the onramps. There are a number of other City streets that are not necessarily on crossing bridges but do intersect with Expressway ramps, and this is really not different other than it is on a bridge.
But let me just say that we're adding a lane of traffic, a turn lane, and the sidewalks on this 69 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. bridge, as was testified earlier, will be less wide than the sidewalks on other bridges.
The sidewalk width is consistent throughout. The additional lanes for the left turns only exist at the Expressway ramps. They don't exist at either end.
So we've only added the additional space that we've needed where we needed it, which was at the ramps, but the widths of the sidewalk remain consistent.
Are there any other questions for this witness? (No response.)
Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. And I see two other folks have joined the witness desk. Please proceed. Please state your name for the record.
Hi. My name is Eve 70 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Lewis. I'm the Executive Director of the South of South Neighborhood Association, SOSNA. My concern to the Streets Department, the Planning, is, the communication and the lack of -- I should say the lack of communication between the City Streets Department and the community. We have got to know what is going on. We need the traffic study. There are a lot of projects that SOSNA is involved with that the closing of the South Street Bridge will impact. So it is just my request that the timing of the construction, the planning, that the communication with the community be a primary issue to let everyone know exactly what's going on. We want to know what's going on at every step of the way. So if the Streets Department will commit to that and giving us the plans that they give to you, Madam President, then we would appreciate that.
Thank 71 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. you.
Seeing none from the Committee, will the next witness please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good morning. My name is Sue Frank. I live at 2508 Pine Street. The few words I'd like to say I think are just a sample of the sorts of things that we'd be hearing if there were public discussions of the sort Terry Gillen is asking for. My husband is a physician who commutes to his work at the VA Medical Center every day back and forth over the South Street Bridge and he asked me to come on down and say a few words on his behalf. I'm the wife who says good-bye to her husband in the morning and wonders, Will I see him again, because he 72 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. sets off across the bridge on his bicycle, hits those ramps. And he feels like any driver who would use them to begin with must already experience an adrenalin rush. He's seen bicycle riders hit on a regular basis. It's a terrifying prospect any way you cut it. I'd like to speak the name of Inga Saffron, which I haven't heard yet today. Terry referred to her writing, I think. She wrote the piece in 2001 that, as far as I'm concerned, fuels a vision. We've lived here for 30 years. Ken and I got married and moved to Philadelphia, and for me, it's home and for me, it's a city of dreams, many of which have been made real, one of them being the beautiful park on the river that's coming into existence. And a current dream of mine and my neighborhood's and I hope the City's is that the South Street Bridge could become a vehicle of some of these dreams, that it could be not a barrier between West 73 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Philadelphia and our side of the river but an invitation for people to go back and forth. Another aspect of the dream is the reduction in the emphasis on the car, that we should lean more towards the walkers and the bikers. So those are the things I wanted to take this opportunity to say and just plead for more public attention to those kinds of concerns. Thank you.
Seeing none, thank you, Sue, for your testimony today. The next person that wants to testify, please state your name for the record and proceed.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Carpenter. And Council President, you may remember that we and the neighbors worked together 74 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. and we were very successful with the 25th and Delancey Street homes effort. We did a very good job there. And the neighbors, all the residents involved in that, and you worked very well together, and it's a success. There is no if, and's or but's about it. And I would speak to that success to say this: That I agree with you as well. We need a dialogue, and I believe that we can do that. We do not intend to be adversarial in any way, shape or form. We simply think we can all do better. I'd like to make one little point -- and by the way, very public occasion, thank you so very, very much, and Councilmembers, for bringing us those homes, because you've also brought us fabulous new neighbors. I mean, civic-minded people who are active and care about this. You really, really improved our neighborhood. We can do this again. We don't need to fight about this. We just need 75 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. to state the facts and let's see what we can do, and that's basically all everyone is asking. We are in fact asking you to not advance this current plan. I'm going to give you a very, very simple little reason why. Okay? In my mind, at best the plan is incomplete. And many good things will come from the residents and from the neighbors. I myself thought, Well, if you can imagine having to cross the South Street Bridge, then cross over to the Penn side and walk all the way to get to the stadium, let alone where you're really going, that's a heck of a long walk. It occurred to me, on the renderings I saw no benches, nothing like that, and I thought to myself, Well, God, if we're going to go this route, couldn't we at least have a little safe house there? By that I mean think of a bus stop enclosure. If you're on the bridge and get caught in the rain, wouldn't you like to have some place to sit, hide from the rain, hide from the wind, rest a 76 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. minute? This is so simple and so cheap to do. It tells me this plan is incomplete. Okay? It tells me this plan -- the people, pedestrians, have not been thought about, then the bicyclists are being thrown a bone, and the motorists are even being thrown a bone. Time lighting at this intersection will not solve the problem. I have all too many times been stuck out in the Expressway with my rear end hanging out there, praying to God someone isn't going to bump me because we're all jammed up. Even if there is timed videotaping or whatever at the intersection, it does not address the people coming off the ramp. That videotape, or whatever it is, does not know who is coming off the Expressway. Okay? And I don't want to belabor any points here or stay too long, because if I remember, with the 25th and Delancey 77 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. thing, I think it was you, Councilman Kenney, you were ready to get that guy with the hook and get me off of here. So I'm going to tell you guys, listen, you guys were fabulous with what you did at 25th and Delancey. And Councilman Kenney, you were there. Councilman Rizzo, you were there. And forgive me to the other Councilmembers, I don't -- I'm getting old. Okay? So I don't remember if you guys were there or not. But listen to me, we can do this. We can. Philadelphia deserves this. And we need to get Penn on board, too, and get Penn involved. Anyway, I'm out of here. I learned my lesson the last time. Buy, guys. Oh, we are doing that petition, just one last thing, and I will tell you, people are writing me letters, letters. I can show you these things. This is 78 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. such an interesting thing that we're doing now, because people have never had the chance before to do this. We'd always knock on their doors and they'd sign. We couldn't get the other people at home. So a mailing, a costly mailing?
Now we're getting letters. Trust me, we're very interested in this. Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming in on this very horrible day.
Thank you, Michael. Will the next person that wants to testify in favor or against this bill 18 please state your name for the record and proceed.
My name is Marcia Dyson and I'm one of the new residents that Michael Carpenter spoke of. And just very briefly, my husband is at the University of Pennsylvania, and I'm originally a citizen of Chicago. And in 79 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. leaving Chicago and coming to Philadelphia, I was a public information officer for the City of Chicago, which is a city that works, and have really embraced this City of Brotherly Love.
It really does. I'm at home here. But in listening to some of the testimonies today for the redesign of the bridge, I really do agree with that, because Philadelphia has changed. To me, the first thing that I noticed when I came here -- I came with a large Lexus -- is that it made me conform. I now have a smaller vehicle. And then I was telling my husband -- I would call on my friends in Chicago. I said, Do you know what I've noticed? There are so many cyclists here per capita. I travel 200 days out of the year and I have never seen a city with so many cyclists. I mean, that's cyclists for recreation like we do along 80 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. the lakefront in Chicago or down the Warth, if you're in Malibu, but people who really use bicycles to work, their children are in tow. I see older citizens. And I said, My God, how come the City is not conforming to it? I mean, I told my assistant, I'm going out to buy me a bike. But then I said, It's very perilous crossing the bridge and other articles of traffic within the City that I think that some of the testimonies that I heard from the people who are opposing the way the construction of the bridge is being developed, I think they're absolutely right, that if you are the City of Brotherly Love, that I think the pedestrians and the people who use that for work -- because I'm quite sure I noticed, too, that because automobile insurance is so high here, a lot of people are using those cycles, because they can't afford to buy a car or they can't afford the insurance to regulate them where they need to go. 81 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. So as a person who is outside looking in and as a resident at 2507 Panama Street, as a person who has to cross over to go to the University of Pennsylvania, that they should be more cautious of the design and more sensitive to the people who use it, who make that community home more so than the on and offramp to anywhere else in the City. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony. Are there any questions for this witness from the Committee? (No response.)
May I just say one thing? This new neighbor of ours took a plane from St. Louis in this snowstorm, landed in New York, got on a train to get to the City this morning to be in this meeting. We do care. (Applause.) 82 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
Thank you so much for coming back home in these conditions. Please proceed with your testimony. Please state your name for the record.
Hi. My name is Alex Doty. I'm the Executive Director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. So to follow up on this idea, Philadelphia actually has more per capita bicycle commuters than Chicago, and we've seen -- we have 25,000 people in the City of Philadelphia that bike to work at least once a month, and the amount of people who are bicycling is increasing in the City. The bike counts that we have unfortunately are only from the Bicycle Coalition. We wish that we had the kind of counts that we have for cars and for other traffic. We wish that we had more complete counts for bicyclists. But one of the things we know is that in the last 83 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. year, we've seen a remarkable increase in the number of people bicycling, 4 percent increase in the number of people 5 bicycling from 2005 to 2006. That 6 includes an almost ten percent increase 7 of bicyclists on the South Street Bridge 8 under its current conditions. So the 9 number of bicyclists who are going to use 10 that bridge when it becomes a more usable 11 facility for bicyclists is going to be 12 really phenomenal and I think very 13 encouraging. 14 I want to say, first of all, 15 that we're very happy that the Streets 16 Department did include us, come to us 17 with some of their design thoughts for 18 the South Street Bridge and that we are 19 pleased to have the bike lanes the way 20 that they are now. I know that the 21 Council President mentioned the idea of 22 having a barrier between cars and bikes, 23 and that is not something that we as the 24 Bicycle Coalition want to see. So there are a number of reasons for that. It has 84 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. to do with a number of things that Charlie addressed that have to do with shy distance. There is also the problem -- one of the problems that is basically the recurring problem on this bridge is the intersection with the onramps, and you don't want to have bicyclists suddenly appearing from behind a barrier to where cars are going to be crossing their path. We want bicyclists to be visible throughout the whole process of moving along on the bridge there, and we want to see facilities that are consistent with the other kinds of facilities that we see in the City. We do have concerns about right-turning vehicles at both of the onramps. Hopefully the traffic study will help us to identify how many people are actually taking that right-hand turn lane and whether we need to have a dedicated right-hand turn lane. Those are all things that I think can be 85 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. addressed even after we find out what the traffic is like, because it's a matter of where the bike lane gets positioned. So that's a matter of striping and not a matter of engineering. There is one -- I'm also very pleased to hear about the pedestrian lead signals. Those are signals that we're seeing increasingly across the City and I think are a great facility for both pedestrians and for bicyclists. It provides the pedestrians, the bicyclists two or three seconds head start before traffic is released. So traffic is stopped in all directions and the bicyclists and the pedestrians have a chance to start out and, therefore, reduces conflicts with cars. I think that that's a great thing to have at that corner. I do have a question about what the curb radius is going to be at the on and off-street ramps. Is that curb radius going to be what it is currently? 86 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Are we going to see an increased radius there to try and accommodate more truck traffic onto those ramps?
We don't remember exactly what the number is on the curb radius, but it's designed for the larger vehicle turning from the right lane five feet off the curb, and the reason is, we don't want the larger vehicles encroaching into the sidewalk where pedestrians will be standing. So we want the radius to accommodate those vehicles that we expect to turn there without encroaching into where we want the pedestrians to safely stand. So that's why we have the size radiuses we have there. I don't recall what size they are, but they are sized for the larger vehicles.
Our concern with having a larger curb radius there is that while it might accommodate larger vehicles that are making that turn, first of all, do we want to be accommodating 87 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. tractor-trailers making the turn onto those ramps? Does that seem like a wise thing to do? And, secondly, what that also does is, it increases the speed that cars are taking that turn at. And so -- and it increases the distance the pedestrians have to cross across that ramp. So I would -- I think that we should look at whether accommodating tractor-trailers onto those ramps is really a good idea.
Are you in favor of this bill or you have some reservations against the bill?
Well, I think that the bridge serves bicyclists better than what's there now. It serves bicyclists I think better than the other bridges, the Walnut and the Chestnut Street bridge. So I think from the bicyclists' point of view, almost anything is better than what's there now. I think that we also share the concerns that people are 88 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. bringing up about whether it's a context-sensitive bridge, whether it's a bridge that's appropriate to connect these two neighborhoods.
So although you have some concern, your association is in support of this bill?
Okay. Thank you for your testimony. Any questions for this witness from the Committee? (No response.)
Seeing none, is there anyone that wants to come before this Committee hearing and testify in favor or in opposition to Bill 070046? (No response.)
I'm going to 89 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. let you -- go ahead.
Michael Carpenter. I have to tell you that many of the things that have been said here today, I do believe that I'm virtually no 16 one from nowhere, but I can address a lot of these things that are going on. Let me tell you about the ramps. Sit down, Mr. Rizzo.
They do need to be addressed. I am going to tell you we need them. They service the hospitals. They allow us to go to our homes. We 90 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. need them fixed. Okay? We cannot do without the ramps. They're very important. I will tell you that my position and most of the folks that we have gotten together with signing this petition and whatnot believe that we can rise above the ramps. As far as Hollenback Hall, I myself -- and lots of people have -- I have a little concept that solves all these problems. It's a very simplistic concept. I don't understand why other things aren't being looked at. I have no 16 illusion that I'm an architect. Okay? Maybe there are big problems with it. Who knows. But in terms of brainstorming, it's just another idea. As I told you earlier about the little safe houses, which I can't see why they wouldn't be appropriate. There are many things that I can tell you. We're all busy. You guys, I'm sure, have history to make today, and 91 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. the truth of the matter is, most of us probably want to go home now. I'd be happy to sit down and I could talk to you ad nauseam about this. Ask us. And I'm done.
Thank you, Mr. Carpenter, for your testimony. All right. Thank you for your testimony on Bill No. 070046, and we'll proceed with the next bill. Can the Clerk please read the title of the next bill.
I would ask Ms. Murray to please read the letter that we received from PennDOT.
This is from Rina Cutler, Deputy Secretary of Administration, addressed to Council President Anna Verna. "Thank you for the recent opportunity to discuss issues related to the South Street Bridge replacement. 92 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. This is one of the key projects on the 2007-2008 schedule and will ultimately make a significant positive addition to both the neighborhood and the Philadelphia landscape. However, there are critical tasks left to complete in order to get into construction. "It is typical on large infrastructure projects that some of the most sensitive items can only be undertaken after the plans have been developed. The South Street Bridge project is no exception. The final coordination with owners of property that must be acquired and the execution of those purchases is now the single most crucial item in completing the bid package for construction. "Although there have been some preliminary contacts, legally the City is at a standstill without the Council ordinances necessary to complete these transactions written and approved by all stakeholders. It is not possible for the 93 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. new bridge to be constructed without access to these properties. "There is another unfortunate reality we must understand on major projects such as South Street and many of those that PennDot has in development for Commonwealth bridges. The structural condition and the deterioration of the bridge sometimes requires us to either post a weight restriction or close a bridge until such time as we go to construction. We do not always manage to finish a bridge replacement project before closure becomes necessary. The Department concurs with the action of the Streets Department to place a lower weight restriction of the South Street Bridge until reconstruction can be begin. "It is by no means certain that under the best of circumstances the South Street Bridge will be able to remain open for the time necessary to complete the project and get the new bridge under construction. Any bridge that becomes 94 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. unsafe must be closed to traffic, even one as critical as this. The closure of this bridge for replacement is a far better alternative than a closure for safety reasons. "Thank you for your consideration, and I urge you to take whatever action in Council is necessary to permit this project to be brought to completion. Thank you for your consideration in this matter. Please feel free to contact me if you require any additional information."
Thank you for reading the statement from -- that was from PennDOT?
Into the record. Clerk, will you please read the title of the next bill.
Bill 060852, an ordinance authorizing and directing the revision of lines and grades on a portion 95 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. of City Plan No. 129 by striking from the City Plan 25th Street from Stokley Street to Westmoreland Street, under certain terms and conditions.
Good morning, Madam President and members of the Committee. My name is Frank Morelli, Survey Bureau Manager of the Department of Streets, and the Department of Streets would like to offer the following testimony on Bill No. 060852. This is not an administrative ordinance, but an ordinance requested by Laura Kern of Klehr, Harrison, Harvey, Branzburg and Ellers, LLP, 260 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102. The purpose of this ordinance, as amended, is to strike from the City Plan 25th Street to provide for a parking area contiguous to the planned Temple University Hospital Community Health Center. 96 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. At this time, the Streets Department would like to offer a technical amendment adding a right-of-way for drainage and water main purposes. This ordinance, as amended, is supported by the Department of Streets and is recommended to your Committee for favorable action.
Good morning, Chairman and members of the Streets and Services Committee. My name is Martin Soffer, Director of Development Planning Division, and I'm here to testify on behalf of the City Planning Commission. The purpose of this ordinance 17 is to allow for the construction of an access drive in the bed of 25th Street to increase safe access to an expanded parking lot designed to service Temple Health Services. The Planning Commission has reviewed and approved this action at its meeting on December 19th, 2006. Therefore, the Planning Commission 97 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. recommends that Bill No. 060852 be approved as amended. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony. Any questions from this Committee to our witnesses? (No response.)
Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. Would the Clerk please read the title of the next bill.
Bill No. 060929, an ordinance regulating the direction of movement of traffic on Cedarbrook Avenue between Greenwood Street and Vernon Road.
Please proceed with your testimony. Please state your name for the record.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Mark Washington and I'm a District 98 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Traffic Engineer for the Department of Streets. I'm here today to offer testimony on Bill No. 060929, an ordinance regulating the direction of traffic on Cedarbrook Avenue between Greenwood Street and Vernon Road. The Streets Department has no 9 objections to this bill. We posted the appropriate signage relative to the one-way traffic pattern from Vernon Road to Greenwood Street on August 31st, 2006. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Thank you, Mr. Washington. Any questions for this witness from the Committee? Councilman Rizzo.
That's my old neighborhood, and I'm just curious, what precipitated the need to do that? Just for knowledge; not that I'm questioning you.
What happened 99 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. was, the residents of this block of Cedarbrook Avenue sent a petition to the District Councilperson for the area, Councilwoman Marian Tasco, to request to have the street made a one-way street away from Vernon Road. That's near a church, a recently opened church, and I guess they were trying to alleviate so much traffic cutting through.
I got it now. Tell me about the fact that -- you test these things first before you actually --
Take one minute and just explain about how you do that.
Just took a map of the area, looked at the proposal that they're looking at and seeing how that would affect any adjacent streets. The main thing is, when we get a request for a one-way -- to make a street one-way street, we look at how it would affect 100 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. the adjacent streets, how it would affect fire and police matters, how it would affect any SEPTA routes. And this street here is a residential street, which is parallel with Cheltenham Avenue, and we determined that this one-way pattern would not affect any adjacent streets in the area.
So what you do is, you post it prior to the ordinance. If it doesn't work, you don't come here.
Yeah, pretty much how it works. We post the signs and the signs are posted on a trial basis.
And if there's any objections between the time the signs are posted and the hearing --
Okay. Thank you. 101 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
It's my understanding that all these bills will help with a better flow of traffic because of the opening of Enon Baptist Church there, and so I think that this will help just smooth things out, some of the neighbor concerns and whatnot. Okay? Thank you.
Any other questions for Mr. Washington from this Committee on Bill No. 060929? (No response.)
Seeing none, thank you. Mr. Washington, you're on for a number of bills coming up right now. Will the Clerk please read the 102 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. title of the next bill.
Bill 060930, an ordinance regulating the direction of movement of traffic on Cedarbrook Avenue between Phil-Ellena Street to Greenwood Avenue.
I'm here today to offer testimony on Bill No. 060930, an ordinance regulating the direction of traffic on Cedarbrook Avenue between Greenwood Street and Phil-Ellena Street. The Streets Department has no 14 objections to this bill. We posted the appropriate signage relative to the one-way traffic pattern on December the 11th, 2006. The one-way traffic pattern is from Phil-Ellena Street to Greenwood Street. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Are there any questions for this witness from the Committee? (No response.) 103 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
Seeing none, thank you for your testimony, Mr. Washington. Will the Clerk please read the title of the next bill.
Bill 060931, an ordinance establishing a "No Truck Parking Any Time" regulation on the 5500 block of Tabor Road, both sides.
I'm here today to offer testimony on Bill No. 060931, an ordinance establishing a "No Truck Parking" regulation on the 5500 block of Tabor Road, both sides. The Streets Department has no 17 objections to this bill. We posted "No 18 Truck Parking Any Time" signs on December the 11th, 2006. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Are there any questions for this witness from the Committee?
A truck is a truck. The way -- a vehicle that has, number one, that has the word "truck" on its license plate.
A pickup truck that has a "truck" on it is allowed to park in those areas.
Based on my understanding from my supervisors, if the truck has -- if it has the word "truck" on the license plate, it's a truck.
Okay. Could you do me a favor, could you send the definition of that? Because obviously the Police Department, there's some confusion, because they've been allowing pickup trucks with language on them, lettering, to park in those areas because they say that they are under a certain GBW and are not drawn into that category. 105 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
So I need you to send to the Chair, please, a copy of what you consider a truck.
Please submit it to the Chair, Councilman DiCicco, please.
Any other questions concerning Bill No. 060931? (No response.)
Seeing none, would the Clerk please read the title of the next bill.
Bill 060932, an ordinance establishing a "No Truck Parking Any Time" regulation on the 5600 block of Tabor Road, both sides.
I'm here today to offer testimony on Bill No. 060932, an ordinance establishing a "No Truck Parking" regulation on the 5600 block of Tabor Road, both sides. 106 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. The Streets Department has no 3 objections to this bill. We posted "No 4 Truck Parking Any Time" signs on November the 29th, 2006. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Are there any questions from this Committee to our witness? (No response.)
Seeing none, would the Clerk please read the title of the next bill.
Bill 060933, an ordinance establishing a "No Struck Parking Any Time" regulation on the 1500 block of Upsal Street between 80th Avenue/Pickering Avenue and Limekilm Pike/Michener Avenue, both sides.
I'm here today to offer testimony on Bill No. 060933, an ordinance establishing a "No Truck Parking" regulation on Upsal Street from 80th Avenue/Pickering Avenue to Limekilm 107 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Pike/Michener Avenue. The Streets Department has no 4 objections to this bill. We posted "No 5 Truck Parking Any Time" signs on September the 12th, 2006. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Are there any questions for this witness from members of this Committee? (No response.)
Seeing none, would the Clerk please read the title of the next bill.
Bill 060941, an ordinance authorizing the installation of all-way stop signs at the intersection of 11th Street and Tioga Street.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is Mark Washington. I'm the District Traffic Engineer for the Department of Streets. I'm here today to offer testimony on Bill 108 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. No. 060941, an ordinance authorizing the installation of an all way-stop control at 11th and Tioga Streets. The Streets Department has no 6 objections to this bill. We conducted a study according to state and federal regulations and determined that an all-way stop control is warranted. We have issued work orders to install the signs. This work should be completed within three weeks. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Are there any questions for this witness from members of this Committee? (No response.)
Seeing none, I will ask the Clerk to read the title of the next bill.
Bill 060935, an ordinance granting permission to Aruna 109 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Patel, owner and operator of the newsstand located on the northeast corner of 9th and Chestnut Streets, to construct, use and maintain conduits for fiberoptic facilities in, under and across the northeast corner of 9th and Chestnut Streets for the purpose of supplying telephone service to said newsstand.
Mr. William Mautz, Construction Engineer for the Streets Department, is unable to attend this hearing to testify on that bill due to snow duty.
Mr. William Mautz, who was scheduled to be here to testify on that bill, is unable to attend due to snow duty. He's not here.
Okay. And you're not testifying in his behalf? 110 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
Bill 060937, an ordinance granting permission to Ashwin B. Patel and Rams Newsstand, owner and operator of the newsstand located on the southwest corner of 10th and Chestnut Streets, to construct, use and maintain conduits for fiberoptic facilities in, under and across the southwest corner of 10th and Chestnut Streets for the purpose of supplying electrical service and telephone service to said newsstand.
I see Mr. Mautz is scheduled to testify on this bill. Is there anyone here from the City that's going to testify on this bill?
The individual who was going to be giving this testimony isn't here right now named William Mautz, but we did provide testimony. So we would like those written into the record. 111 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
The individual who was going to be giving the testimony is not here, William Mautz, but he did provide testimony, if that could be written into the record for each of these cases.
Clerk, do we have written testimony for Mr. Mautz on Bill No. 060937?
If we do, can we read it into the record? Can you state the section of his testimony that says he's in favor or opposed to this bill, please.
Should we do it for 35 as well, because there's written testimony for 35 as well.
Does that go for 35? Let's start with 35. And if you don't mind, please 112 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. stay right there.
Testimony for Bill 4 060935, an ordinance granting permission to Aruna Patel, owner of the newsstand at the northeast corner of 9th Street and Chestnut Street, to construct, use and maintain an electrical conduit with electrical service line and a telecommunications conduit with a telephone service line in and under the public rights-of-way for the purpose of supplying electrical and telephone service to the newsstand, all under certain terms and conditions. "Good morning, Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is William Mautz and I am a Construction Engineer with the Streets Department. I am here to offer the following testimony for Bill No. 060935. "Bill No. 060935 grants permission to Aruna Patel, owner of the newsstand at the northeast corner of 9th Street and Chestnut Street, to construct, 113 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. use and maintain an electrical conduit with electrical service line and a telecommunications conduit with a telephone service line in and under the public rights-of-way for the purpose of supplying electrical and telephone service to the newsstands. "The Streets Department has reviewed the construction plans for this project and has no objection to the passage of this bill." Testimony for Bill No. 14 060937 --
Clerk, please hold on for a minute, please. Are there any questions from this Committee on the bill that was just read into the record from Mr. Mautz? (No response.)
Seeing none, will you please read the title of the next bill, please.
Testimony for Bill 25 060937, an ordinance granting permission 114 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. to Ashwin B. Patel and Rams Newsstand, owner and operator of the newsstand at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Chestnut Street, to construct, use and maintain an electrical conduit with electrical service line and a telecommunications conduit with a telephone service line in and under the public rights-of-way for the purpose of supplying electrical and telephone service to the newsstand, all under certain terms and conditions. "Good morning, Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is William Mautz and I am a Construction Engineer with the Streets Department. I am here to offer the following testimony for Bill No. 060937. "Bill No. 060937 grants permission to Ashwin B. Patel and Rams Newsstand, owner and operator of the newsstand at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Chestnut Street, to construct, use and maintain electrical conduit with 115 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. electrical service line and a telecommunications conduit with a telephone service line in and under the public rights-of-way for the purpose of supplying electrical and telephone service to the newsstand. "The Streets Department has reviewed the construction plans for this project and has no objection to the passage of the bill."
You've heard the written testimony of Mr. Mautz from the City of Philadelphia in favor of this bill. Are there any questions from the Committee on this bill? (No response.)
Seeing none, would the Clerk please read the title of the next bill and please read the testimony submitted by Mr. Mautz.
Yes. Bill 060938, an ordinance granting permission to Mohammed A. Ahamed, owner and operator of the newsstand located on the southeast 116 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. corner of 7th and Market Streets, to construct, use and maintain conduits for fiberoptic facilities in, under and across the southeast corner of 7th and Market Streets for the purpose of supplying electrical service and telephone service to said newsstand. "Good morning, Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is William Mautz and I am a Construction Engineer with the Streets Department. I am here to offer the following testimony for Bill No. 060938. "Bill No. 060938 grants permission to Mohammed A. Ahamed, owner of the newsstand at the southeast corner of 7th Street and Market Street, to construct, use and maintain an electrical conduit with electrical service line and a telecommunications conduit with a telephone service line in and under the public rights-of-way for the purpose of supplying electrical and telephone service to the newsstand. 117 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. "The Streets Department has reviewed the construction plans for this project and has no objection to the passage of the bill."
You've heard the written testimony submitted by Mr. Mautz on Bill No. 060938. Are there any questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Seeing none, will the Clerk please read the title of the next bill.
Bill No. 060960, an ordinance authorizing Wachovia Bank, its successors and assigns, to place a freestanding ATM kiosk on the north sidewalk of East Allegheny Avenue adjacent to the bank entrance at the Wachovia Bank located at 861 East Allegheny Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19134, under certain terms and conditions.
Please state 118 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. your name for the record and concerning your position on Bill No. 060960.
Before you proceed, I'm sorry. Mr. Cohen, is there testimony here on this bill as well from Mr. Mautz?
Can you please bear with me and can you read into the record the testimony of Mr. Mautz on Bill No. 060960.
Yes. "Good morning, Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is William Mautz and I am a Construction Engineer with the Streets Department. I am here to offer the following testimony for Bill No. 060960. "This bill authorizes Wachovia Bank to place a freestanding ATM kiosk on 119 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. the north sidewalk of East Allegheny Avenue adjacent to the bank entrance. The freestanding ATM kiosk is approximately nine feet three inches in length by three feet seven inches in width, leaving approximately feet of 8 clear footway. The structure is covered 9 by a roof approximately ten feet eight 10 inches in length by seven feet three 11 inches in width by one foot eight inches 12 thick. The roof is approximately nine 13 feet above the sidewalk. Telephone and 14 electrical service connections are 15 provided from the bank building. 16 "The Streets Department has 17 reviewed the construction plans for this 18 project. As the encroachment does not 19 adversely affect the public right-of-way, 20 the Streets Department recommends passage 21 of this bill."
Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for reading into the record the statement of Mr. Mautz from the Streets Department. 120 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Can you please proceed with your testimony.
Yes. Thank you. My name is Randy Hoffer. I'm the Marketing Director for Impact Services and also representing the K&A Business Association. I just have some short testimony for the record. I am representing the 85 members of the Kensington and Allegheny Business Association and we are in full support for the proposed outside freestanding Wachovia Bank ATM to be located at 861 East Allegheny Avenue. The presentation from LAC Architects was given at the April 19th, 2006 business meeting and the members voted unanimously to approve the stated project. One of the key goals of the business association is to strengthen the economic vitality of our area. It is also essential that the community residents receive services allowing them to fully benefit from available 121 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. resources. The K&A Business Association has determined that this Wachovia ATM would provide this service to the neighborhood residents. The placement of this ATM would also alleviate residents and Wachovia customers from paying additional fees at other ATMs located along the commercial corridor. We are requesting your approval for the necessary ordinance to be written for this project. Thank you. If there's any questions, I do have the gentlemen representing the architect, LAC, and also Wachovia Bank to my right.
Are any of you other two gentlemen presenting testimony? And if so, proceed. (No response.)
Are there any questions here from Committee members to our witness? Councilman Rizzo. 122 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
I just have a quick question. When you say "freestanding," the bank building is, I guess, here and how far away actually from the building is the kiosk?
Why is it freestanding and not like you're accustomed to, not part of the structure itself?
Well, in this situation, where it's situated and the bank is a very historical --
I'm sorry. My name is Len Caruth, Architect and Principal of LAC Architects.
You can 123 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. answer.
The reason for that is simply because the building is a very historical and ornate building, and in order to where it has to be -- the clients requested it to be located, it's a breezeway or, if you will, a mechanical access there that would definitely be costly prohibitive to put it into the -- located into the building. So in this situation, the clients opt to have it as a freestanding on the sidewalk.
Does that suggest since it has access 360 degrees that there's more than one machine? Are there two machines, three machines since it's a kiosk?
Also, I'd like to recommend that -- I know you have video surveillance in the ATM technology, 124 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. but that ought to be a location that's considered for the video surveillance program that the Police Department has initiated, because I think it would be even a safer environment of people utilizing it that knew that it had that technology keeping an eye on that location. So I'd like to talk to you later about possibly working with you to have, if you agree that that would be even more helpful, that location surveilled by a video surveillance camera.
Any further questions from this Committee on the witnesses? (No response.)
Seeing none, thank you for your testimony this afternoon. 125 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Would the Clerk please read the title of the next bill.
Bill 070045, an ordinance granting permission to Marilyn T. Stroud, 1543 Dickinson Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146, to operate and maintain an open-air sidewalk cafe on the northeast corner of South 16th and Dickinson Streets, under certain terms and conditions. And there is written testimony from Mr. Mautz, which I will read. "Good morning, Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is William Mautz and I am a Construction Engineer with the Streets Department. I'm here to offer the following testimony for Bill No. 070045. "This bill grants permission to Marilyn T. Stroud, 1543 Dickinson Street, to operate and maintain an open-air sidewalk cafe at the northeast corner of South 16th and Dickinson Streets adjacent to the property. A total of four tables 126 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. to accommodate occupants are proposed for the east sidewalk of South 16th Street, leaving approximately nine feet clear footway for pedestrians. No rails will be used. "The Streets Department has reviewed the cafe plan and has no 9 objection to the passage of the bill." 10
11 Mr. Chairman, if I may. For the record, 12 this is in my district. I have received 13 a petition from the area residents 14 approving this request. 15
Thank you, 16 Madam President. Let it be recorded into the record that the President and the District Councilperson, Ann Verna, has indicated that she has support from the community -- through petitions, Madam President?
Thank you. Any questions from the Committee concerning Bill No. 070045? 127 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. (No response.)
Seeing none, are there any other bills to be discussed at this public hearing?
Seeing none, this concludes the public hearing part of the Committee on Streets and Services. We'll go into the Committee meeting after a one-minute recess. (Short recess.)
We'll start at this time with the meeting of the Committee of Streets and Services. We have a quorum. For the record, Bill No. 18 060897 is being held. Bill No. 060893 is being held. Bill No. 060896 is being held. And also at the request of the sponsor, Bill No. 070046 is being held and to be continued on February the 28th. At this time, I recognize Council President Verna.
Thank 128 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am going to respectfully request that this public hearing be continued until February 28th at 10:00 a.m. with the request that there be another community meeting at which time the Streets Department, City Planning and PennDOT and whoever else is involved in this particular bill be present at the community meeting. I think that I have received a number of e-mails, faxes and requests and many, many people from the community would have been here today had it not been for the horrible weather conditions that we have. So I think in order to respect them, I think that many of their requests are going to have to be answered before we can go forward on this. There's no doubt in my mind that we certainly need a new bridge, new South Street Bridge, but I think in all fairness to members of the community, we definitely have to answer their questions. 129 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I am making the request that this be continued until February 28th, with the proviso that there be a community meeting between now and then. Thank you.
So granted, Madam President. At this time, I will call on Councilman Frank Rizzo on an amendment on Bill No. 060852.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to offer an amendment to Bill No. 060852, add to Section 1 in (b) "reserve and place a right-of-way for drainage purposes and water main purposes within the lines of 25th Street as being stricken under authority of this ordinance." Add to Section 2 in (f) "the filing of an agreement by the owner or owners of property affected thereby, granting to the City the aforesaid rights-of-way for drainage purposes and water main purposes in Section (b) of 130 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. this ordinance. The agreement shall provide that no changes in grades shall be made and that no fences, buildings or other structures, either overhead, underground or upon the surface shall be constructed within the lines of the right-of-way or abutting thereon, unless the plans for such structures shall first be submitted to and approved by the Philadelphia Water Department. The agreement shall also grant the right-of-access and occupation at any and all times to the officers, agents, employees and contractors of the City for the purpose of construction, reconstruction, maintenance, alterations, repairs and inspection of present and future facilities and structures."
It has been moved and properly seconded. The Chair recognizes Councilman 131 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Rizzo for a motion on the bill.
I move that Bill No. 060852 be amended and be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading on this bill at our next Council session. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 13 060852, as amended, be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting, as amended. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. 132 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060929.
And move out of Committee with a favorable recommendation. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 13 060929 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman 133 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060930.
Bill No. 4 060930 will move out of this Committee with a favorable recommendation and that the rules of Council be suspended so we can have first reading at the next session of Council. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 12 060930 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060931. 134 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC.
Bill No. 3 060931 will be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and that the rules of Council be suspended for the next session of Council. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded Bill No. 10 060931 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060932.
Bill No. 25 060932 be moved from this Committee with 135 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. a favorable recommendation and that the rules of Council be suspended so this can be read at the next session of Council.
It's been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 10 060932 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060933.
Bill No. 25 060933 be moved from this Committee with 136 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. a favorable recommendation and that the rules of Council be suspended so this can be heard at the next Council session. Do I hear a second? (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 9 060933 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060941.
Bill No. 24 060941 be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and that the 137 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. rules of Council be suspended so this can be read at the next session of City Council. Second, please. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 9 060941 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060935.
Bill No. 24 060935 be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and that the 138 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. rules of Council be suspended so it can be read at the next Council session. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded Bill No. 7 060935 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060937.
Bill No. 22 060937 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and that the rules of Council be suspended so this can be read at the next Council session. 139 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded Bill No. 5 060937 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060938.
Bill No. 20 060938 be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and that the rules of Council be suspended so this can be read at the next Council session. (Duly seconded.)
It has been 140 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. moved and properly seconded Bill No. 3 060938 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 060960.
Bill No. 18 060960 be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and that the rules of Council be suspended so this can be read at the next Council session. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded Bill No. 25 060960 be reported out of Committee with 141 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo for a motion on Bill No. 070045.
Bill No. 16 070045 be moved from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and that the rules of Council be suspended so it can be read at the next Council session. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded Bill No. 23 070045 be reported out of Committee with a favorable recommendation and further moved that the rules of Council be 142 2/14/07 - STREETS - BILL 060852, ETC. suspended to permit first reading of this bill at our next Council meeting. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. For the record, Bill No. 060897 is being held at the request of the sponsor and Bill No. 060893 is being held at the request of the sponsor and Bill 15 No. 060896 is being held at the request of the sponsor and Bill No. 070046 will be continued at the request of the sponsor on February the 28th. This concludes the meeting of the Committee of Streets and Services. (Committee on Streets and Services adjourned at 12:30 p.m.) - - - 143 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on February 14, 2007, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)