Blvd Subway
@blvdsubway
Build the Roosevelt Boulevard Subway! 🚇
Very glad that the City of Philadelphia put the L and Trolleys underground.
When the Schuylkill Valley Metro faltered, a task force was convened to salvage it. Among its recommendations was an extension of the Norristown High Speed Line into the King of Prussia mall district. A spur conceived as a feeder to a regional line that was never built acquired a life of its own.
After World War II, Philadelphia faced a defining choice: transform the completed but never-used Locust Street Subway into a municipal parking garage or finally finish it and put trains on the tracks.
“Unless the City of Philadelphia forms a definite transit program very soon for the extension of high-speed transit lines into the Northeast and Northwest sections of Philadelphia, the city is going to be depopulated.” — Councilmember Clarence K. Crossan (April 16, 1876 – September 25, 1960)
Currently, the L has been coming every 8 minutes; 3-minute L service would be a game changer!
This PATCO map dates back to 1964. Take a moment to imagine how different South Jersey could have looked if this vision had been fully realized. Then imagine what the region could become when we finally complete the system that was originally envisioned.
A fascinating glimpse into how people in the 1940s imagined the 1980s would look. It's a reminder that yesterday's vision of the future often says just as much about its own era as it does about the one it tried to predict.
A 1937 ad from the Philadelphia Transportation Company. This picture shows the L and the 10 (T1) on the Market Street Bridge! In the mid-1950s, this section of elevated track was replaced with the Market Street Subway and demolished.
Big news for Northeast Philly: the Castor Avenue Safety and Streetscape Improvements Project is moving forward. Funding is secured, design and engineering are nearly complete, and shovels hit the ground in spring 2028.
As we speak, crews are tearing up trolley tracks in North Philadelphia that have sat abandoned since 1996. It didn't have to end this way. The abandonment of North Philadelphia's trolley network stands as one of the most consequential transit planning blunders in recent history.
In 2000, Mayor Street pushed to build a new ballpark in the Callowhill area. The plan fell through and the idea was moved. Today, the neighborhood is seeing major redevelopment, and with a second phase of the Rail Park on the way, it has yet to reach its peak.
The Washington Ave road diet has been a massive success. The next big project will be on Castor Ave, construction 🚧 starts next year!
The Washington Ave Connector is a beautiful thing to see done. Philadelphia be positive a better city is happening!
For three decades after World War II, the proposed Crosstown Expressway cast a shadow over South Street, threatening its businesses with demolition and driving sustained disinvestment. The corridor we know today still bears those scars, and it deserves focused attention and reinvestment.
Center City would look much different today. Big thanks to the communities that fought these awful highway plans.
Philadelphia would look like this had non-interstate highway funding not been cut in December 1969. The Northeast and Pulaski Expressways would have broken ground immediately. RT 309 would have been extended through North Philadelphia, cutting past Temple to connect with the Girard Expressway.
It's official: City Hall could look like this by 2031, when phase two of the City Hall Modernization project wraps up. But none of it happens unless SEPTA gets funded.
You have to give up for the DVRPC. The Circuit Trail system is coming along steadily!
In the years after the Second World War, no transit project loomed larger in Philadelphia than the Market Street Subway. Its premise was simple to state, if formidable to execute: tunnel a new line beneath the existing elevated and carry the corridor underground.
A. Merritt Taylor dreamed of a well-connected Philadelphia. That dream lives on through this movement. We are the vanguard of a world-class transportation system.
The Roosevelt Boulevard Subway's connection to the Broad Street Line will likely resemble the 1960 proposal. This section is expected to be tunnel-bored, though the specifics would be finalized during the design and engineering phase.
Woodhaven Road is an expressway that ends abruptly just past Roosevelt Boulevard. In 2004, a proposal to extend it west to relieve congestion on Byberry Road was cancelled. Byberry Road to this day remains a chronic bottleneck.
It looks like the Broad Street Line (B) Reverse Signals Project will begin next year! One step closer to a world-class City Hall Station.
Tired of City Hall Station feeling cramped behind a forest of columns? Ready for an open, fully ADA accessible station that actually works for everyone? Good news: the funding is on its way. By the mid 2030s, City Hall Station will be world class.
Northeast Philadelphia's trail and bicycle network will feature two bikeways: the Pennway Trail, which runs along an electric utility corridor, and Roosevelt Boulevard, which will likely receive protected bike lanes on both sides of the street.
Roosevelt Boulevard originated as a grand parkway under the jurisdiction of the Fairmount Park Commission, serving as a key connector within the city's network of park drives. It was substantially widened in the late 1950s and early 1960s.