We have exciting news to share about Cobbs Creek Parkway! At a virtual stakeholder meeting hosted by Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center last Thursday, PennDOT and the Philadelphia Streets Department shared some promising plans to improve safety along Cobbs Creek Parkway. Continue reading

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Larry Spector has penned an impassioned and very lawyerly letter to the mayor about how he and his coalition have worked really hard to come up with a totally awesome bill that is totally not about keeping people out of Society Hill. They really need it to get passed because they worked really hard on it for two whole years. We won’t go line-by-line through Spector’s screed, and we won’t try to guess at the coalition’s intentions or motivations. (They claim something to do with historic preservation, which they hope to accomplish by requiring new parking lots to be built.) We will lay out some facts of the bill, and the impact it will have. You can decide whether this bill would be “not racist” and “not exclusionary”. Continue reading

Weekly Newsletter, Issue 127 🌆 TELL MAYOR KENNEY: VETO EXCLUSIONARY ZONING OVERLAY IN SOCIETY HILL Councilmanic Prerogative won another round for exclusionary zoning, and City Council passed Councilmember Mark Squilla's zoning overlay for Society Hill. Continue reading

Weekly Newsletter, Issue 126 🌆 REJECT EXCLUSIONARY ZONING IN SOCIETY HILL Society Hill NIMBY ('Not in My Back Yard') activists have been lobbying Councilmember Mark Squilla to help them make their neighborhood even more exclusive. Despite the Mayor vetoing this push last year, the bill is back and likely to pass City Council THIS THURSDAY. Continue reading

Weekly Newsletter, Issue 125 🚴 BIG WIN FOR GRAYS FERRY BRIDGE Remember that petition for a westbound protected bike lane on the Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge we published last year? PennDOT and the City heard our request and is making it happen! PennDOT anticipates that a modular curb system with flexible delineator posts will be installed by the end of November 2020 on the westbound side of the Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge over the Schuylkill River. This means that both westbound and eastbound sides of the Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge will have protected bike paths! Continue reading

Remember that petition for a westbound protected bike lane on the Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge we published a little over a year ago? We just got an exciting update from PennDOT! PennDOT anticipates that a modular curb system with flexible delineator posts will be installed by the end of November 2020 on the westbound side of the Grays Ferry Avenue Bridge over the Schuylkill River. This project safety enhancement will make the boundary between the westbound bike lane and the adjacent vehicular traffic lane more visible to both drivers and bicyclists. Continue reading

Weekly Newsletter, Issue 124 🏞️ PETITION FOR A SAFER COBBS CREEK PKWY For far too long Cobbs Creek Parkway has been a deadly thoroughfare weaving through the western edge of West and Southwest Philadelphia. PETITION TO CHANGE THIS TODAY Continue reading

By Larissa Mogano, For 5th Square On Thursday, newly elected Register of Wills and 50-year resident of Southwest Philadelphia Tracey Gordon held a press conference at the entrance to the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center to address traffic safety concerns along one of Philadelphia’s most dangerous roads: Cobbs Creek Parkway. Jokingly dubbed “NASCAR” by other longtime neighbors, the topic of the press conference was definitely no laughing matter. We gathered to remember yet another young life lost in a completely preventable incident. 25-year-old Avante Reynolds leaves behind a 2-month-old baby after she was violently killed by a driver who left the scene. While we are frustrated with the careless and callous actions of one individual, the responsibility is not theirs alone. Continue reading

Weekly Newsletter, Issue 123 🛣️ RECOVERY STREETS - EXCITING NEWS TODAY: Join us for a webinar about our Recovery Streets Platform and hear about the progress Philadelphia has made to date plus exciting new initiatives.  Continue reading