No separation needed for church, cyclist
A courtesy arrangement has enabled permit-holding worshipers to override parking restrictions on designated blocks.
Friction over people parking in bike lanes to attend weekend worship services while cyclists struggle to safely navigate the same streets is a good reminder of the unprecedented, competing, and growing demands on Center City’s constrained and finite transportation infrastructure. And like other street fights, this one can’t be resolved in a vacuum.
It’s also a good reminder of the need for wider-ranging conversations — among constituencies, the City Council, and the Philadelphia Parking Authority — to make a good-faith cooperative effort to tackle the many mobility challenges in the heart of Philadelphia, where fiscal and geographical limitations force us to make the most of what we’ve already got.
The Inquirer’s Jason Laughlin reported last week that a courtesy arrangement has for decades enabled permit-holding worshipers to override most parking restrictions on designated blocks near downtown synagogues and churches on Saturdays and Sundays.
Habitual bike-lane incursions by vehicles of all sorts create a safety hazard for cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike, particularly during weekday business hours. Within Center City’s grid of mostly one-way, narrow streets, illegally parked vehicles cumulatively add to more frequent and costly congestion, which in turn delays SEPTA buses and contributes to the dramatic ridership decline recorded since 2012.
The city has recognized this, as evidenced from the breadth of its CONNECT: Philadelphia’s Strategic Transportation Plan. The plan highlights key targets that include making streets safer and more efficient as well as improving bus service.
Earlier this month, the city announced a six-month pilot project to create loading zones to accommodate delivery and ride-sharing vehicles during certain hours along a 14-block Center City portion of Chestnut Street. And a tech start-up firm developed a system that has created a digital map of all fire hydrants, loading zones, parking spots, and other elements of 100 miles of the Philly street network; such a tool could prove useful in traffic management.
Capitol capacity can’t contain protests
Pennsylvania invites its citizens to engage in lively and personal protest at the seat of government.
As long as it’s done in small enough groups.
As reported by PennLive. com, if you want to marshal your forces and show up at the state Capitol with a contingent of like-minded individuals to tell your state representative how you feel about a bill or your senator what you think about a proposal or the governor what you believe about the budget, you better count everyone before you show up.
The General Services Department is now allowing only 450 people or fewer to rally in the Capitol Rotunda.
There is an element of this that does make perfectly logical, perfectly logistical sense. The restriction allows for a corridor to get people back and forth. Hundreds of people work in the Capitol and surrounding state offices that require a lot of coming and going.
At the same time, it could be a bucket of cold water thrown on the hot passions of protest. It smacks of “free speech zones,” created to allow a protest in a designated area during a parade or other gathering. That might fulfill a nod at constitutional protections but does so in a way that pulls all of the teeth from its bite.
But protest, by its very nature, breaks down fences and oozes over lines drawn in the sand. It refuses to be contained, like water in a downpour.
It will not take long for a rally or a protest or a march to make its way to the Capitol with more than 450 people in tow. Maybe those first 450 will be the only ones allowed in the Rotunda.
The others will not simply melt away.
The protest that is capped in one place will simply spread to others, because the people have a tendency to disagree with the government they have elected and really like to get together with others and say so.
And if they can’t show up at the Rotunda, there’s a good chance they will show up at the ballot box.