Transportation / Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

With an established transit infrastructure, a focus on multimodal travel, effective collaboration, and a number of highly innovative programs, Philadelphia has earned a spot as a top metropolitan region for transportation. Its transit system covers five counties, serves 4 million people, and is the sixth largest transit system in the country. But there is more to smart transportation than just getting people from place to place. Like many cities, Philadelphia acknowledges the relationship between transportation and public health. For example, getting residents to choose walking and bicycling instead of driving can contribute to a healthy population. But Philadelphia and SEPTA are taking it a step further with their pioneering initiative to bring people closer to fresh food.

Transit Teams Up for Fresh Food

“We’re working with the city, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, and the Food Trust to identify the food deserts in Philadelphia and study their access to transit,” says Marion M. Coker, manager of strategic business planning and sustainability for SEPTA. Future service planning will be one major component of the strategy to increase residents’ access to fresh food. But Greenworks Philadelphia, the city’s extensive sustainability plan, targets putting local food within a 10-minute walk of 75 percent of the city’s population, or well over a million people, and SEPTA plans to use its real estate to host farmers’ markets at transit centers in partnership with the Food Trust.

“The city and SEPTA have a very positive relationship,” says Andrew Stober, chief of staff for the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities. “We’ve worked together to launch a Transit First program, improve coordination between city agencies and SEPTA, and pursue competitive grant funds.” Transit First was an initiative established in 1989 to improve transit service in the metropolitan region; its projects are constantly evolving.

Closing Gaps for Walkers and Cyclists

Philadelphia’s stellar transit system, however, is just the beginning. Stober is quick to bring up the Complete Streets program, part of the nationwide Complete Streets movement, which Mayor Michael Nutter signed into executive order in June 2009. 

One successful project that reflects this policy is the new South Street Bridge, which connects Center City and West Philadelphia and reopened in November on budget and ahead of schedule, with wider sidewalks, separate pedestrian entrances, and spacious dedicated bicycle lanes for safer travel alongside cars. In the future, these paths will connect with the extension of the Schuylkill River Trail.

That may just happen this summer, when construction will begin to fully close gaps in bicycle and walking trails across the Philadelphia region. Through the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Discretionary Grant program, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Philadelphia $17.5 million to fund the project. The Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia both assisted in identifying target areas that could make getting across town on two wheels or by foot much easier.

“It should be safe, convenient, and reliable to choose to travel by foot, bike, transit, or car,” says Stober. “So we are working to fine-tune the balance between all our road users.”