It’s a time of new beginnings, and hopes for a better future! Or at least, trying to be better than we are now, in ways that will fade along with our newly-renewed gym memberships. In no particular order: No more “SEPTA Key is Late” complaints. It’s very late. We all know it’s very late. We […]
Category Archives: Philadelphia City Hall
Pricing parking is not regressive
People who object to putting a fair price on parking often claim that it would be a regressive tax falling primarily on the poor and working class. That assertion is not supported by the arithmetic. Based on an unscientific survey of Philadelphia’s poor and working class, conducted by watching Twitter keyword searches for the last […]
Visualizing parking is the first step to resolving parking politics
A new map shows exactly which block faces in Philadelphia require the pittance of $35/year to keep a car on them. The terms of parking politics in this city may never be the same. Lauren Ancona’s previous magnum opus was a map showing the boundaries of the PPA parking permit districts, a work that landed […]
Would anybody ever say no to a carshare car?
Even under the most venial interpretation of the support requirement, the RCO and District Councillor veto points are a waste of everybody’s time.
Jobs, job access, and building a strong, solvent city
I went to Young Involved Philadelphia’s City Council Candidate Convention last night. As I talked directly with many of the candidates, there was a common refrain among many of them: “The city needs to rebuild its tax base by bringing more jobs back into the city.” (The policy conclusions each candidates drew from that premise varied, of course.) […]
God help us all.
If you are running for Mayor, and you don’t have an agenda that includes bus lanes, transit signal priority, and bus shelters, then you have no plan for helping public transit riders in this city.
Knowledge is power, especially on bad days
Quick thoughts on SEPTA’s response this morning to the fire in Kensington across from York-Dauphin Station that shut down the El: Obviously, the root cause of the mess was an enormous fire on someone else’s property that SEPTA could not have prevented, but since “Large Fires in Kensington” seems to be the new normal, at least until […]
I’m supporting The 5th Square. You should too.
Last Monday’s big local news was the announcement of The 5th Square, a new PAC aimed at bringing Philadelphia’s urban space politics into the 21st Century — dragging it kicking and screaming, if necessary. In a year where the exciting transportation news was virtually guaranteed to come out of 1234 Market Street, and the landscape […]
Strike Warning cancelled: DEAL IMMINENT
The Inquirer’s Paul Nussbaum is currently tweeting photos of elected officials and SEPTA executives congregating in advance of what appears to be an imminent announcement of a contract agreement. More as it comes over series the tubes.
SEPTA/TWU Strike Kremlinology
The steady drip, drip, drip of signs and portents leaking out of this week’s round of negotiations between SEPTA and its biggest union have finally ended in a press conference that fills me with despair for entirely non-strike-related reasons. The key bit is this: There will not be a strike next Monday. Election Day on […]
