Wonky intersection at 10th, Reed & Passyunk to be rebuilt this summer
The city plans to spend several hundred thousand bucks to improve pedestrian and traffic flow at the hazardous intersection of 10th, Reed and Passyunk.
Sam Sherman at Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corporation said that the city is in charge of the project, which we were tipped off to by a helpful reader who sent us a picture of the spray paint lines a couple weeks back. That also tipped us off to the fact that there has been some action at the shuttered Triangle Tavern, finally.
Sherman said the city plans to focus on traffic-calming measures like expanding the curbs to shrink the distance a pedestrian needs to cross, improving signals, adding pedestrian crossing signals, redoing the sidewalks and adding ADA-compliant ramps.
No additional greenery was in the initial plans but Sherman said he has requested that the city leave at least some tree pits to spruce up the joint once the work is finished. It doesn’t look like there will be the hoped-for island and “sneckdown,” a term we only became familiar with after a particularly big snowstorm this year.
We haven’t gotten the final planned price tag from the city yet (the project manager didn’t return a call back), but Sherman estimated that it would cost about $400,000. The work there should be moving this summer.
Speaking of improving intersections, Sherman said the funding for the gateway project at Broad and Passyunk has been released and that work should start by the end of July. The improvements to that other ridiculous intersection, 12th and Passyunk, should begin later this year.
Projects like this are exciting, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so when the issue of school funding becomes more prevalent. I know they are completely unrelated funding sources but it seems like when we’re in a pretty dire schooling situation and $400k could go a long way to funding a few teachers salaries. Is anyone else starting to think this way?
No.
Yes!!!
Thank goodness. This intersection is a nightmare for pedestrians.
It ain’t no picnic for drivers either.
Yeah pedestrians want so called “improvements” made so they can keep their heads buried in their phones. Usually kids raised in the city are taught to look both ways before you cross the street… But the influx of people from the burbs is really forcing us to dumb things down.
As you just said “completely unrelated funding”, that answers your question.
This project is money well spent.
No doubt it’s well spent. It’s just harder to get excited about development in the city when there’s going to be mass exodus of millenials in 5-10 years because we have no decent schools.
Right because there are no more children being born so once the “exodus” happens there won’t be a new generation of youth to replace them.
Again, one has nothing to do with the other. Why keep bringing it up, just to muddle an issue? It does nothing to further either point, both are which need to be done.
That is exactly the point. As the school crisis persists these issues will become muddied. The city and state need to better prioritize how it is spending public money. Traffic improvements are great, but they will become increasingly difficult to justify when all our schools are closing down. $400k is a lot of $$$.
@myles, sorry you don’t get this… but A and B are NOT related. So there is no point in discusssing them in tamden in this situation. If you want to discuss them at that level, then find a discussion about the next President and Gov.
This is NOT that place.
Myles, why must you be such a one issue-person? You know, kids do walk to schools via city infrastructure, like this intersections, which is very close to Jackson Elementary. That intersection is a nightmare. I take it you’ve never crossed. Walk from Rita’s to CVS on a dark, busy night and try to figure out how to cross safely.
A “nightmare”??? LoL.. An intersection??? We need to stop exaggerating. An intersection can be a nightmare if you are a moron who doesn’t look both ways… Otherwise, most of us can cross just fine. Why do we need to keep throwing money out the window just because people don’t know how to look both ways before crossing a street!?!?!
Your idea of money well spent is a joke. The stuff growing on the dirt piles they put at 16th and passyunk is dead looking. I wonder if it will become tumbleweed..
Now if only PPA would ticket the autobody shops for parking on the sidewalk and the street.
Since the government is not held responsible for anything unlawful it does couldn’t they do some creative accounting so that money could flow to the schools?
@Barb, translation please??
The other problem with this intersection is for bicyclists. Biking south down 11th is popular because of the wide road and decreased risk of being doored due to the angle parking of cars. When you make that left hand turn onto Reed at the Acme you have a treacherous cross to continue south down 10th. I don’t know what the solution is but it would be great if Streets and Planning could think about cyclist safety at this intersection as well. My mother would thank you for keeping me not dead.
If I understand you correctly, you’re asking for improvements to make it safer to turn the wrong way on a one way street.
hahahaha
No actually, south on 10th from Reed is not against a one-way. However I don’t see what’s so incredibly dangerous about it as long you cross with the green. Maybe due to the trolley tracks?
Sorry Toy, but those are both two-way streets.
That crossing from the Triangle Tavern to the Acme corner is especially treacherous since the cars turning left from E. Passyunk to Reed have their view blocked by that giant bush on the corner. Pedestrian signals and a part of the cycle where all the lights are red for about 15 seconds would be a huge help.
Dan,
I’d like to point out that even though you can’t see around the bush (a big complaint of mine for years, mind you) when those cars have the right of way to make that turn, you as a pedestrian crossing from the Acme corner to the Triangle corner have a red light.
I do look forward to these improvements, though. Now if only the Acme would close off that northern exit to Passyunk. It serves no purpose, and only contributes to more snarl.
Good point. There’s probably some other crossing situation I was thinking of where the pedestrian has the green light and it’s still a harrowing experience.
Also… anyone else see the dumpster in front of Triangle?!? There’s a-doings a-happening!
I thought I remembered this from something I read a few years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble
Basically… have a part of the cycle where all the lights are red for about 15 or 20 seconds and let the pedestrians just cross everywhere at the intersection including diagonally during that time.
One of the other terrible things about this intersection is the cars that stop in the middle when traveling up Passyunk. There’s a light at the near corner (at the Passyunk Market) and one at the far corner (at Rita’s), so when the light changes while a car is going through some will simply stop in the middle. This blocks the cars turning left from Reed onto 10th, and the cars going south on 10th, and the confused drivers make it even more dangerous for pedestrians. Hopefully they fix this as well.
I hate when they stop their. It’s far more dangerous for them to be stopped there than it is to continue through the new red light.
Cyclists could make things less “treacherous” by obeying traffic laws, of course that is absolutely out of the question for 90% of them.
A traffic circle would be aesthetically pleasing and functional. Has this been proposed I wonder?
Hmm… a traffic circle? Do you, by chance, own an auto-body shop?
LoL.. Ant.. Funny..
A circle!!! What?!?! Go to Jersey with that crap… Circles and jug handles are slop slop slop…!