October 8–15, 1998
city beat
The Best-Laid Spans
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by Frank Lewis
The South Street Bridge is a lot older than you might think.
The portion that spans the Schuylkill River, for example, connecting the Southwest Center City/Grays Ferry area to the sprawling University of Pennsylvania campus, was built in 1922.
The South Street Bridge is longer than you'd probably think as well. Officially, it stretches from 27th Street to Convention Avenue—a distance of about 2,000 feet.
The South Street Bridge also gets more use than you might think. Roughly 25,000 cars pass over it on an average day. And that number is expected to increase by 10,000 or more in the next 20-odd years, especially if the neighborhoods on the Center City side rebound economically. No figures are available for pedestrians or bicyclists, but the bridge is used heavily by both.
So rebuilding the South Street Bridge—as the city's Streets Department plans to do in the next few years—is a much more ambitious project than you might think. Construction could take two to three and a half years, depending on the level of access allowed to areas at the feet of the bridge (generally speaking, the more access allowed, the longer the job will take). The Streets Department, which will manage the project, and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), which will oversee use of state and federal funds, estimate that the cost will range from $25 million to $50 million.
And the final cost could be higher. Current plans call for the demolition of every part of the largely steel bridge; only the foundations of the piers that rest on the riverbed are likely to be kept.
"It's getting to the point where it can't really function anymore," says Streets Department Engineering Manager Robert Wright. Even with the cost and disruption of replacement, it now makes more sense than repairs.
Joseph Capella, a PennDOT project manager, explains that the overall stability of bridges is ranked on a 100-point scale, with 100 being the highest score. The South Street Bridge's sufficiency rating, as it's called, is below 50. It's not in danger of collapsing anytime soon, but it is eligible for federal funds for rebuilding.
The preliminary design phase has been underway about three years; the last public meeting—sparsely attended—was held in April 1996. The best guess for groundbreaking is 2000 to 2002, probably the latter.
But, as with any project that involves large numbers of drivers, walkers and bikers, it is not without critics. Michael McGettigan, a bike shop owner and neighbor of the bridge, recently described the plan as "a disaster for pedestrians and dubious for cyclists" in a newsgroup for Philadelphia transportation issues (phl.transportation).
"A foot [in width] more for pedestrians, 30 feet more for cars," he adds in an interview, at a time when pedestrian and bicycle use of the bridge could increase even more rapidly than vehicular use. Toll Brothers, a housing developer, is planning a 900-unit apartment complex on the nearby Naval Home property, which could make the entire neighborhood very attractive to Penn students and employees.
But planners take exception to suggestions that they've ignored those who walk and ride.
"That hurts," jokes Lane Fike, the Streets Department project manager overseeing the South Street Bridge job. "I think we've taken all those things [that are important to pedestrians and cyclists] into consideration."
For example, in addition to creating one new lane for traffic in each direction, the Streets Department plans to designate 5-foot-wide bike lanes on both sides. The sidewalks, currently 7 feet wide, will gain another foot because the barriers separating them from the roads won't be reproduced on the new span. (The existing bridge is 56 feet wide; current plans for the new bridge indicate a width of approximately 82 feet.)
Partially enclosed, gazebo-like structures resembling the now-sealed, ornate control booths (where the controllers sat when the bridge was still raised for passing ships decades ago) will be built into the new bridge at the piers. Intended to be observation spots, the structures will extend a few feet over the water so as not to encroach onto the sidewalks, and may include benches.
The planners believe they've done everything they can to make the bridge friendly to non-motorized users. Criticism, suggests Wright, might have more to do with perception than fact.
"'Accommodation' is a funny word," he says. "[Bicyclists] have gotten used to riding on the sidewalk, so the concern is that if they're in bike lanes there will be more accidents [with motor vehicles]. But they're not supposed to be riding on the sidewalks."
Calls to the Bicycle Coalition were not returned before press time.
McGettigan's primary complaint, however, is that the plans for South Street Bridge are indicative of a car-first philosophy that hurts the city in more ways than it helps.
"Philadelphia has become steadily less attractive to residents and to tourists in great part due to increased auto traffic," he argues. "And now PennDOT and the Streets Department have decided that [accommodating] 10,000 more automobiles through the neighborhood is a good thing.
"More cars, more pollution, more accidents—who does that help? Not Philadelphians. Not Penn students. And not even businesses, because no one ever kept a business open inside a speeding car."
According to Fike, another public meeting to discuss the bridge will be held late this year or early next year. The final design phase will begin sometime after that.
