PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A subway on Roosevelt Boulevard may sound as unlikely as using drones to fight crime, but Philadelphia City Council passed two resolutions at its final session last week to look into the feasibility of both of them.
Councilmember Mike Driscoll is planning hearings on an idea that many consider pie in the sky — a revival of the proposal for a Roosevelt Boulevard subway. He doesn’t think it’s so unrealistic.
“With all the infrastructure money coming from the federal government, if we could put that to good use and reconnect 500,000 people more easily to public transportation, I think we ought to at least look at it,” he said.
He remembers going to Sears on Roosevelt Boulevard as a kid — not to shop, but to explore.
“There was a subway station — the tunnel — and because we as kids would have to go down to explore and play,” he recalled, “it was like a time capsule of something that could have been.”
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That first proposed spur of the Broad Street Line never materialized outside of the tunnel, but Driscoll thinks it’s worth rehashing.
“And that’s what I’m intending to do — hold a hearing to see if it’s realistic, to see if we can fund it and to see if it makes sense,” he said.
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Meanwhile, City Council President Darrell Clarke turned his attention to crime-fighting drones. He believes Philadelphia is behind the curve on using drones to enhance public safety, and he said his constituents agree.
“As I go out in the community, the response tends to be positive, so let’s have the conversation and then if we need to figure out a way to implement it within the law, from a constitutional perspective, we need to look at that,” he said.
“We need to look at every opportunity to look at technology to deal with public safety.”
Clarke is expected to schedule a hearing on drones in the fall.
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