That's true. The Penn Praxis plan allows expansion of port facilities north of the Walt Whitman Bridge, nearly all the way up to Weccacoe Avenue, and the tank farms around Pulaski Park could probably support expanded port facilities, if need be.

Remember, ports have changed in the last fifty years. Most ports still handle the same traffic, but since most of it is containerized, you don't forests of piers marching up and down your harbors or riverfronts anymore.

__________________
This, this, this, and this are my new favorite things.

These two, not so much.

Very much true.

And ports offer good jobs, and a great source of revenue forthe city.

Obviously, ports have to be a big part of any soluion for Philly.

__________________

I agree. But of course, as you head upstream, the river gets narrower and shallower. And a port waterfront in the Center City area is not a good investment. I think a main port from the eastern part of the old Navy Yard to mid-South Philly--essentially an expanded Packer Marine Terminal--where the railroad yard is anyway--should be about right, and where the river width is best, for a large central port.

Also, I think that the Navy Yard basin could be one of several smaller sub-ports scattered throughout city limits (another one could be at the old Port Richmond marine terminal / Allegheny Ave tank farms and a few more locations could easily be found).

All port facilities must be located close to, and preferably next to, railroad tracks. This is simply because trains, unlike trucks, can handle the greater traffic density a port creates, which will reduce traffic on Del Ave.

Mozilla Firefox also happens to have a great spell checker imo btw.

__________________
This, this, this, and this are my new favorite things.

These two, not so much.

Navy owns that basin. Forever.


Second.


I raise you Tioga Marine Terminal.

Well north of Center City.

Tioga Marine Terminal
Philadelphia, PA
DRS handles over 300,000 tons of break bulk and perishable cargo annually at Tioga Terminal.


and has rail

__________________
It's too tall..! it ruins the feel of the city..! It casts massive shadows..! It's an architectural nightmare..! We should stand together and fight this monstrosity that threatens our homes..! ...but amazingly no one tore down the Eiffel Tower.

or.. why we shouldn't always listen to "neighborhood groups" and critics.

Why do you want to hurt me?

Agreed. TheCC section of the river must be for recreation. If we want to create a city that competes with other great cities. The immediate problem is how to do that without burying I-95 (since that is not going to happen right now) without precluding the option of burying I-95 sometime in the future...

The southernpart is the best option for expanding the port. Which also needs to be done in order to exploit Philadelphia's strategic advantages of location, and railroad.

But this is all old news and was officially stated in the Praxis plan for the riverfront which everyperson in the galaxy roundly applauded with the exception of Zur, who sat heckling and booing and heckling again from his private box seat like a lonely version of Statler and Waldorf.

__________________

Yeah... who's going to boo parks and bike lanes.


Cept when they see how much they cost, how much the upkeep is, and how much then the land is wasted (as opposed to income generating retail, commercial and dense residential)

__________________
It's too tall..! it ruins the feel of the city..! It casts massive shadows..! It's an architectural nightmare..! We should stand together and fight this monstrosity that threatens our homes..! ...but amazingly no one tore down the Eiffel Tower.

or.. why we shouldn't always listen to "neighborhood groups" and critics.

Actually, I was down by Penn's Landing just the other day, and I realized what one of the problems with its location was.

There's a ton of surface parking lots! Even on the Landing itself, which is supposed to be a park!

I realized that these surface parking lots--the ones between Del Ave and I-95 make the psychological barrier between the waterfront and Society Hill all the more formidable, and of course, surface parking lots are the poorest waste of commercial land possible.

Solution? Parking garages. That's unbelievable! you may shout. Parking garages are just as bad as parking lots!

Ah, but here's the rub: a parking garage, unlike a parking lot, can have ground-floor retail, to accentuate the dining options available on the Landing. Not only that, but the layers on layers a garage has offers x amount of available parking spaces more than a lot. Not only that, but a parking garage can be built with a green roof. A lot can't. And, to put icing on the cake, parking garages lining the space between Del Ave and I-95 will, aesthetically at least, minimize the expressway's impact and thus further a connection between the waterfront and Society Hill / Old City.

They could also offset the horrendous surface lots on Penn's Landing itself, and make the parts further from the river seem more like parkland than they do now...

And the only thing the city need do would be to institute that land use tax that would replace the income lost by a lower wage tax and / or a lower business privilege tax.

Bingo.

__________________
This, this, this, and this are my new favorite things.

These two, not so much.

Did anybody attend the Penn Praxis presentation last Thursday? The casinos as now designed are the "antithesis" to what we're hoping to achieve on the waterfront. If they can't be moved, why can't they be reworked to at least minimized the negative impacts on the waterfront?

I'm surprised I couldn't find any active threads on this topic.

There should be more than a few threads about the casinos.

Personally, I think everyone is overreacting to them. The aren't going to be huge resorts like in AC and Vegas, they will generate revenue for the city (taxing the stupid, I admit, so just don't go if you don't like them), and the locations will serve as bookends or buffers between the recreational sections of the waterfront and the industrial ones.

Sure, they can (and should) be redesigned to allow public access to the river, hide their parking garages, REDUCE the parking requirements, and generally not be as boxy...but I think we'll see many of those things happen anyway.

Rather than fight the casinos outright on moral or other grounds, the people of Philadelphia will be better served by finding ways to make them work WITH the Praxis plan.

Because Penn Praxis will do anything to kiss the butts of those who'll help them move their vision foward.

But those same people would stab Penn Praxis in the back if they could remove the casinos from the map...


Because to them al they see if negative impacts from the casinos.

__________________
Old City: Suburban Paradise in the city. Only a couple of years away.