PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia will get $25 million from the federal infrastructure bill to make safety improvements on a series of neighborhood streets that have seen a rash of crashes.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania, joined city officials Friday to announce the grant which focuses on reducing crashes in seven Philadelphia street corridors, including one near Temple Hospital where a nurse was struck leaving work hours before Friday’s announcement.
“This project couldn’t be more timely for us here in this community. We see it all the time,” said Jazmine Nicholson, a colleague of the nurse who was injured.
“You see the bus pulling up. You bump the corner out, and people don’t need to step into the street. They can just step right onto the sidewalk,” Philadelphia Deputy Managing Director for Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability Mike Carroll told Casey as they discussed safety ideas for the area.
They stood right by the three-street intersection of 13th and Tioga streets and Germantown Avenue with Temple Hospital rising above the neighborhood.
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13th Street also intersects Atlantic Street a very short distance away, a place where two narrow one-way streets come together. Yet Carroll said three recent crashes have happened there, with two involving pedestrians, and a total of 45 crashes on Tioga Street between Fifth and 15th streets in the last five years.
“They are not designed as major thoroughfares. These are local streets that are supposed to be the backbone of our neighborhoods and community life,” said Carroll.
That 10-block stretch will get new signals, better lighting, repaving and other improvements thanks to the federal grant. It will also pay for improvements on six other corridors.
“We’re going to pursue this award in a way that includes community, that allows us to identify a spectrum of solutions that starts — but does not end with — better infrastructure,” said Carroll.
Mayor Jim Kenney stressed that all seven corridors stand outside Center City.
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“I’m very proud those seven locations are all in working class neighborhoods, hopefully to make their situation better,” said Kenney.
“The least the federal government can do is make investments like this,” Casey added.
The city will meet with neighbors to tailor each project. Work is expected to begin in 2025.
All of the corridors in the new program are on the city’s High Injury Network.
Road improvements are slated for these seven locations:
North Philadelphia
— Tioga Street between 5th to 15th streets
— 11th Street between Master to Diamond streets
— Limekiln Pike from Medary Avenue to Haines Street
— Longshore Avenue from Roosevelt Boulevard to Frontenac Street
West Philadelphia
— Westminster Avenue between 40th to 52nd streets
— Springfield Avenue between 51st to 57th streets
— North 57th Street from Upland Way to Wynnefield Avenue