PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Jocenia was walking with her young daughters from Children’s Hospital to an appointment in Center City last week when, without warning, the sidewalk in front of them was fenced off.
Her choice was to walk a quarter-mile back to the closest intersection, cross, and back track.
But with two little girls, a half-mile detour might have meant missing the appointment, so she hustled them across four lanes of traffic on Market Street.
“I think it was actually dangerous,” she said, “because we had to do it in the middle of the street and the cars are coming, traffic on both sides, especially with the little ones,” said Jocenia.
“I think the work should be done quicker. That’s been like that for quite a while.”
The sidewalk closure at 23rd and Market streets is just one of many in a city with a record number of construction projects in the works. The city approved more building permits in 2021 than at any other time in its history.
A few blocks away, near 19th and Chestnut streets, Mike Menna was finding it hard to get to his destination because of a project taking out the entire sidewalk, mid-block.
“It’s annoying and it’s kind of unfair because there’s a lot of construction here and it’s dangerous, and it’s inconvenient to cross to the side of the street and cross back to get here, but they should do a better job of having a bypass to get around that,” he said.
Many city officials agree.
Since Philadelphia’s building boom began in the early 2000s, there have been a number of measures to try to force developers to provide a pedestrian pathway through projects that encroach on the sidewalk.
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Then-Councilmember Jim Kenney made it a requirement of obtaining a sidewalk closure permit to provide an engineer’s statement on the feasibility of providing a covered walkway, all in a 2008 bill.
Former Councilmember Helen Gym updated the bill in 2017 to require that developers also be required to attempt a walkway in a traffic lane, separated from vehicles by Jersey barriers. Her bill also raised the fees for a complete sidewalk closure without pedestrian accommodation.
There was some notable success. The transformation of the Gallery into the Fashion District came with a pedestrian lane on several blocks of Market Street.
Philadelphia Department of Streets Deputy Commissioner Rich Montanez admits there’s been some slippage in the last few years as the cost of materials to provide those options has risen.
“We understand what the mayor and Councilmember Gym introduced,” he said, “but there’s also the feasibility of how to get construction done in a tight city. Our job is to try to make everybody work cooperatively in the public right-of-way.”
Montanez says the department only approves sidewalk closures if it’s satisfied the developer has met the criteria. Sometimes, he says, it will require a signaled crosswalk in the middle of the block for safety. And all closures are required to have signs warning pedestrians where they need to cross.
“A lot of times when we come to these construction zones, they’re not doing their due diligence of maintenance,” he said.
That would certainly be true of the sidewalk blocked at 23rd and Market. The sign at 30th Street that is supposed to warn pedestrians to cross is frequently knocked over or moved.
On Monday, it was half a block down, leaning against the bridge, with the arrow pointing straight ahead — toward the blocked sidewalk.
A runner approached the fenced-off area, paused, and decided to plunge into the traffic lane. She didn’t make it to the end of the closure before a pickup truck approached behind her.
Another runner made a different decision.
“I was just going to jaywalk across. It’s kind of annoying, but I can take my chance now,” she said, darting into the street.
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PECO holds the sidewalk closure permit and its executives have a bird’s eye view of the madly dashing pedestrians since their building is across the street from the closure, precisely where people are forced to cross to get around it. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Montanez says the sidewalk will stay closed after PECO finishes utility work because the building it’s working on is being demolished to make way for a life sciences center. The developer, Breakthrough Properties, is a joint project of Tishman Speyer of New York and Bellco Capital of Los Angeles.
“After researching all potential options, we followed the recommendation of both our engineers and the Streets Department to close the sidewalk directly adjacent to our site,” Breakthrough said in an emailed statement.
“As part of the project, we will replace the sidewalk, which has been in disrepair for many years, making it more pedestrian-friendly and ADA-compliant. We apologize for any inconvenience our construction is causing to the local community. We are and will continue to examine our current signage program to make sure our directions are as clear, visible, and helpful as possible for pedestrians.”
Mayor Kenney said he remains committed to open sidewalks but emphasized such closures as the byproduct of robust investment.
“We have an unprecedented number of construction permits, which is a good thing,” he said. “Individual cases where the public thinks that it’s not safe should just be brought to our attention and we’ll have someone address it.”
Calls can be addressed to 311.