New construction at 23rd and Race (high-rise apartment), 22nd and Arch (loft condos), 22nd and Race (new homes), all in my neighborhood, plus all the new buildings in other parts of the downtown, will make driving a nightmare down here in the next couple years.

I noticed that they just cut the lanes on the Ben Franklin Parkway city-bound outer lane to one, and they look like they are putting a new traffic light inside Logan Circle.

These are good signs for pedestrians and transit users, not so good for drivers!

Plus, now that they are ticketing inside-the-box blockers, and red-light runners, drivers will think twice about driving in.

Logan Circle is long overdue and is part of the plans that we came up with as part of the Center City District / Project for Public Spaces effort to look at Vine Street.

Hopefully, any traffic calming measures on Ben Franklin Bridge will also have that effect.

And ticketing in the box is so long overdue it hurts. I remember when Happy Fernandez tried to push the police to do the same - she had a campaign to make the streets safer for pedestrians since Philadelphia has a scandalously high rate of pedestrian death and injury (or did).

__________________
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

It would be nice to see some kind of aggressive promotion of public transit to this large influx of new CC residents. These people are moving into the city at least partially to get away from car-oriented environments, are they not? So get them out of their blasted cars and get them walking or riding transit! There's no reason an influx of residents into CC should automatically result in worse traffic (though it very well might).

I like the traffic since it is a good sign of a healthy city. People from other cities are always amazed at how much traffic there is in Center City because they had assumed - wrongly - that Phila was like most other cities in the U.S. - dead at night and on the weekends.

*most* well to do people will not be waiting on the corner for a bus, to then hop on the subway or EL. The people buying million dollar condos will be walking, taking cabs, limos, or driving their $140k Mercedes around town. All 3 of the options add to the traffic situations.

Fortunately, I can acknowledge the benefits of a car, large SUV and SEPTA...and use all 3 without having an attidude twd those who prefer one over the other

btw: The homes at 22&Race will probably have 4 car parking, each.

with the garages right in the middle fo the street!

Interestingly, the one place where you do see higher end users are the trains- people who could drive seem to be willing to take the Regional Rail.

I'm always amazed at the difference between the people who use Regional Rail and who use the BSL or MFL.

However everyone hates the bus.

It will be interesting to see how the Route 15 does.

Hal

Makes sense.

What amazes me here, is how fast the buses get ruined. The carvings in the plexiglass windows really drive me nuts. Ghetto ass mofos...

We shall see. Its a pretty deep lot.

I'm not sure I see how the "walking" option adds to street traffic. If you're referring to sidewalk traffic, then bring it on. We have far too many empty sidewalks in this town as it is.

I realize people who buy million-dollar condos aren't likely to use public transit. But here's the thing - transit doesn't have to be the way it is in this country. If you've ever been to Germany, you've seen public transit that is in a whole different league - clean, aesthetically pleasing, quick, efficient. You still might not get millionaires riding the subway, but if American subways looked like the German U-Bahn, if our light rail looked like the sleek, ultra-modern light rail vehicles I've ridden on in Wuerzburg and Braunschweig (which frequently have their own dedicated right-of-way, by the way) and plenty of other German towns, plenty of people who now turn their noses at transit might well be convinced to ride.

Of course, to get there we'd have to actually spend some money on transit. What we've got now is what you get if you don't want to spend any serious money. I just wanted to point out that it doesn't have to be that way.