December 09, 2024
Thom Carroll/for PhillyVoice
PennDOT will hold four open house events for the public to learn about potential options to dramatically redesign Roosevelt Boulevard. The alternatives under consideration include building a subway line in Northeast Philadelphia.
The future of Roosevelt Boulevard will be the focus of four public meetings — with the first one Saturday — to gather feedback on how the corridor in Northeast Philly should be changed to improve traffic and build a potential subway, light rail or dedicated bus line along the route by 2040.
The open houses hosted by PennDOT will review six different options that have been studied to assess their costs, impacts and feasibility in the years ahead. SEPTA and city officials will be present at the four meetings to answer questions from the public.
The open house schedule is listed below:
• Saturday, Dec. 14, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Mayfair Community Center (2990 St. Vincent Street)
• Monday, Dec. 16, from 6-8 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel Philadelphia Northeast (2400 Old Lincoln Highway)
• Wednesday, Dec. 18, from 6-8 p.m. at the New Life Philly Church (425 E. Roosevelt Boulevard)
• Tuesday, Jan. 7, from 6-8 p.m. at the American Heritage Credit Union (2068 Red Lion Road)
PennDOT's long-term goals for the project are to improve safety, accessibility and reliability along Roosevelt Boulevard. The 15-mile stretch remains one of the city's most congested and dangerous roadways, and the lack of a rapid transit option has limited Northeast Philly's integration with the rest of the city.
"The meetings are to get the public's input and gauge what they're looking for (to have) a completely reimagined Roosevelt Boulevard," Alexa Egan Harper, a project engineer for PennDOT, said Monday. "... We really want to know what the public wants, how they envision the boulevard 15 to 20 years from now, ways they want it to be improved and how they currently use it."
The options being studied for Roosevelt Boulevard fall under two main categories. One would use a "neighborhood boulevard" model, comparable to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, that keeps the majority of roadway changes at ground level. The other would create a partially capped roadway with a series of overpasses, similar to the Vine Street Expressway in Center City. Each scenario would have implications for how the three public transit options might be incorporated into the design.
PennDOT is specifically considering changes on Roosevelt Boulevard that would run between the intersection of Broad Street in North Philadelphia to the Neshaminy Mall in Bucks County.
For the neighborhood boulevard option, some lanes would be designated for faster speeds than others. In this model, a bus or light rail line would run down the middle of the boulevard. Green spaces on either side would serve as buffers between the traffic lanes.
If Roosevelt Boulevard were instead partially capped, a series of crossroads and intersections would be built above the traffic lanes to reduce the number of places where drivers currently need to travel across 12 lanes. A bus or light-rail line would remain at ground level, but new express lanes would slope below ground for cars. Other lanes for local traffic would remain on the surface next to the chosen transit line.
The most costly transit option — a new subway line — would be constructed underground for both the neighborhood boulevard and cap options. Station entrances would be built at ground level.
Displays will be at each of PennDOT's open houses to help people understand how the different options would work.
"We want to make sure that the long-term redesign for both transit and roadway options fit the needs of the people that use the roadway," Egan Harper said.
Regardless of which option PennDOT chooses, officials cautioned that it's still unknown how the long-term plan for Roosevelt Boulevard will be funded.
There has been momentum in recent years to build a Northeast Philly subway line that links with SEPTA's Broad Street and Market-Frankford lines. Doing so would generate about 62,000 daily trips, taking thousands of cars off Roosevelt Boulevard.
Under the neighborhood boulevard option, PennDOT estimates building a subway line would cost $11.6 billion. It would cost even more — $15.8 billion — under the cap model. Both figures are much higher than estimates from a couple decades ago that projected a Northeast Philly subway might cost between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion, according to a report from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.
Compared to the subway line, PennDOT estimates a rapid bus line on Roosevelt Boulevard would cost $1.9 billion for the neighborhood boulevard model and $5.8 billion for the cap model. The bus line would generate between 31,000 and 38,500 daily trips.
The light rail option is projected to cost $5.6 billion for the neighborhood boulevard model and $9.7 billion for the cap model, with projected ridership falling between 36,500 and 56,400 daily trips.
SEPTA officials said Monday they don't currently have a preference for any of the alternatives that will be discussed at the open houses.
"What we want to do is improve service," spokesperson Andrew Busch said. "It's going to be dependent on the resources, so it's good to be able to come together with PennDOT and the city to look at options, talk to residents about them, and see what's realistic. I think our financial crunch, most people are aware of that. There would need to be funding sources above and beyond what we have now. The funding on this would be a major lift to get done."
PennDOT described the open houses as an important part of its public engagement process, which also includes an online survey that residents can fill out to share their hopes for the redesign of Roosevelt Boulevard. Based on public feedback, PennDOT aims to select a preferred alternative by early 2026.
"Then we need to go through environmental studies and preliminary engineering before it would go into final design, and then construction would begin," Egan Harper said. "It looks so far away, but in reality there are so many steps we need to take before this can get to construction."
