GRABCASH SEPTEMBER 2022 / ISSUE 160 / GRIDPHILLY.COM TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE PHILADELPHIA PLUS A more swimmable Delaware River is possible p. 6 Electric cars are everywhere. The infrastructure is not p. 18 Democracy is undermined on Washington Avenue p. 22 TRANSPORTATION ISSUE Employees and advocates outraged by Schuylkill Center’s plan to sell 24 acres of wooded land
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Pitting these two human needs against each other is a false choice. We can and should have safe streets and housing security. This false choice misses the biggest threat to us all: climate change. Looking at the weather forecast, the first three days of school are predicted to be in the 90s. In Philadelphia, on-road emissions increased 9% between 2006 and 2019. How many more 90-degree days do we need until we realize that the status quo must change on Wash ington Avenue and everywhere else?
Sure, electric cars will reduce air pollution — especially if it is supplied by renewable energy — but we need to radically rethink our streets. The much maligned “road-diet,” the elimination of lanes on a road to improve safety, only scratches the surface. We need our roads to go on a starvation diet. We need fewer cars, less concrete and more trees in a city that is getting hotter and hotter. Housing security and safe streets are not mutually exclusive, but car culture and sustainability are.
A , Editor-in-Chief
BOYLEJAMESBYPORTRAITILLUSTRATED 2 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 COVER ILLUSTRATION BY GREGORY W. DYSON
nce a year, police officers stand ing in front of barricades block my usual commute to work. The street, Spruce, is closed from 34th to 38th streets, to allow University of Pennsylvania students to move into their dorms. Upon seeing them, and realizing I’m going to be delayed, I mutter a few choice words. I understand why they would want to close it to car traffic, but do they really need to close it for cyclists, too? Part of what I feel is jealousy, because the world stops for the families of Ivy League students. But upon dismounting and walk ing for a bit, it dawns on me that, hey, it’s only a five-minute delay, and aren’t these just kids with butterflies in their stomachs and parents with lumps in their throats trying to navigate the next chapter in their lives? Let them have some space. Wouldn’t it be great if at school drop-off time every parent and child felt that safe and cared for? Imagine what it would be like if everyone had that base level of fear (which, unfortunately, often expresses itself in rage) removed from their lives? When the redesign of Washington Avenue was spearheaded by the Philadelphia Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sus tainability (OTIS), the day-to-day safety for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists was their primary goal. If you have walked, biked or driven on the avenue, the prospect of a rede sign would likely be welcome. But not by all. Oppositional arguments were made that this road fills an import ant role for evacuations, and that pushing the traffic off of Washington will just put it somewhere else, potentially making resi dential streets less safe. Yet the argument that seems to have the most emotional force behind it is the fear of gentrification, and rightly so. It is a crime when people are forced from their homes
A big thank you to Daniel Kaye, who this month has submitted his 100th “MILO K, hermit crab” cartoon. It always makes me smile and it’s the first thing my son reads in the magazine each month. Let’s do 100 more!
— as they currently are at University City Townhomes — by greed. The dearth of af fordable housing in this city is a crisis and a moral failure. People should feel safe on the streets, yes, but they should also feel secure that they aren’t going to be put out on them.
publisher Alex Mulcahy director of operations Nic Esposito associate editor & distribution Timothy tim@gridphilly.comMulcahy copy editor Sophia D. Merow art director Michael Wohlberg writers Kiersten Adams Marilyn ConstanceBernardAnthonyBrownGarcia-BarrioLindsayHargraveSophiaD.MerowLoisVolta photographers Chris Baker Evens Troy Bynum Lisa Schaffer illustrators Gregory W. Dyson Lois Volta published by Red Flag Media 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 215.625.9850 GRIDPHILLY.COM
O
False Choice EDITOR’S NOTES by alex mulcahyalex mulcahy
BOYLEJAMESBYPORTRAIT
Anyone or anything can pop a bubble,
Community Radio (92.9 FM). Through this service, I can connect to a community where I feel held in a bigger vision. My bubble merges with other bubbles to contribute to a broader mission that includes more than my family and immediate surroundings.
ILLUSTRATION BY LOIS VOLTA THE VOLTA WAY by lois volta
V isualize a bubble over yourself. This bubble symbolizes a restora tive space to reset; it brings you back into the moment and has the energy of centeredness and heal ing. It’s just for you, only accessible by you, and there for you whenever you need it.
Bubbles are usually made out of soap. When we clean things up, wash them down and scrub out what has contributed to dys function and dirt build-up, we make at least our little part of the world a better place. We all want that. Cleaning up our individ ual messes and having healthy relationships with the people in our lives can be revolution aryHowacts.great the impact will be when we work together, are inclusive to everyone, and have caring intentions as we cover our planet with the hope for a brighter future. ◆ a sense of renewal?
When you start to feel comfortable in this space, you might use your breath to inten tionally expand the space to be more inclu sive, to grow your bubble. Maybe you want your bubble to include the room you are in to create a safe and sacred space.
4 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 and bubbles popping is expected. When it happens, start again. After a pop, we have the opportunity to come back to ourselves and our homes, to focus and center our energy. This “coming home to ourselves” energy perpetuates and accelerates the momentum of the ex pansion, and it takes less time to rebuild, forgive, mourn and tidy, ultimately pushing forward the energy of healing and love. Once our lives become rooted in this re ality, it is easier to see how beautiful life can be. We have to start by seeing the beauty in ourselves, our immediate spaces and the people around us. Then, again, push out.
But, bubbles pop. When one does, things don’t have to fall apart, although they might. How you have been operating in your sacred space has made you and your community stronger and more resilient to life’s blows.
When our communities are strong we feel better equipped to invest care into our cities; we feel more empowered to support a greater mission to see and experience hu man equality and environmental justice.
And the bubble keeps expanding to include more and more people who together build safe, healthy, sustainable, beautiful places. The effects of our reach grow with each in tentional, healing breath.
Personally, I can’t seem to feel focused, or intentional about the inside of my bub ble when my clothes are scattered around the room or there are things left undone. It’s harder for me to tap into restorative vibes when I am surrounded by stuff and tasks I have to do. I either breathe through the stress of the situation and keep that bub ble tight and close or expand the bubble by clearing, cleaning and preparing the space to my comfort level. This brings a feeling of dignity into my surroundings that is followed by conscious decisions to keep things feeling thisNext,way.visualize the bubble to cover your home and the everyday motions within it. Like a protective shield, it holds love, thoughtfulness and healing. It covers all who enter and live in it. Yes, there will be mess es and dramas that come and go, but this shouldn’t keep us from having homes that are supportive and life-giving. Maintaining and keeping our homes sustainable is part of creating a beautiful life. Expand the bubble over your neighbor hood, breathing life into your community through your own personal expression and what feels comfortable for you. I like to volunteer on the radio show “The Everyday Feminist” through Germantown lois volta is a home life consultant, artist and founder of The Volta Way. Send questions to info@thevoltaway.com.
DEAR LOIS, How do you find
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Take Us to the River
“The Delaware River has a primary con
6 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 water
A change in pollution restrictions could make the Delaware more swimmable by bernard brown O n a blisteringly hot day dur ing Philadelphia’s mid-July heat wave, Bruno Rodrigo and Rafael Ibero leapt from the floating dock at Pleasant Hill Park in Northeast Philadelphia and into the refreshingly cool water of the Delaware River. Further into the channel people on jet skis zipped by, water spraying into the air in their wake.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LISA SCHAFFER
“The water is clean,” Rodrigo said, shrug ging as he compared it to the waterways in the pair’s home state of Minas Gerais in Southeastern Brazil. Rodrigo and Ibero work at a tire shop a few blocks away. They prefer the river to the Jersey Shore, where the water is much colder and leaves salt on theirJumpingskin. into a cool river on a day when the heat makes being outside intolerable seems like the most natural thing in the world to do, as evidenced by people doing it. But questions about whether people are jumping into the Delaware River — and whether they should — lie at the heart of a dispute between the Delaware River Ba sin Commission, which oversees use of the waterway, and a group of advocacy orga nizations urging the commission to adopt stronger pollution restrictions. How the commission sets pollution tar gets depends on how people use the river. The commission officially recognizes that people use the Delaware from around the Commodore Barry Bridge 26.6 miles up through most of Philadelphia to a point just above the Tacony boat ramp for “secondary contact” recreation in which they might get splashed a little, like paddling a kayak or fishing. The commission divides the river into water quality zones, and this section corresponds with all of Zone 3 and part of Zone 4. In the rest of the river the commis sion recognizes that people engage in “pri mary contact” recreation, like swimming, water skiing and riding jet skis, in which they get thoroughly soaked and possibly even swallow some water in the process.
Anthony Lana, a mechanic who works on watercraft, was testing repaired jet skis on the river with a coworker. He sees the river as under-utilized for recreation. “It would be nice if the City promoted doing more stuff on the water,” he said, noting that the other two ramps in Northeast Philadelphia were closed. He says the city needs “more docks, more places to do this. There’s no where to do this.” ◆
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 7
Although Pleasant Hill Park sits on the stretch of river currently recognized as hosting primary contact recreation, the wa ter that Rodrigo and Ibero swam in flows back and forth with the tides across the boundaries, and the jet skiers themselves did the same, racing up from the secondary contact zone into the primary contact zone.
The commission also points out the pos sible risks of recreation on a stretch of river used by enormous ships. Van Rossum re jects the idea that there is much of a colli sion risk, noting that encounters between large ships and swimmers or small water craft are rare. “If there was a problem, the solution shouldn’t be to kick the people off the river. The river belongs to the people,” sheAsays.jetskier who gave his name as Mello gets on the water every weekend. “I learned to re spect the ships,” he says. “You see a ship, you don’t go nowhere near it, basically.”
— maya van rossum, Delaware Riverkeeper
As Mello took off into the river, he cut a sharp turn close to the dock, spraying Ibe ro and Rodrigo with river water. The two cheered and then jumped off the dock again.
temporarily closed. The Delaware River Basin Commission has responded by acknowledging that al though people are jet skiing in the river, the water isn’t clean enough to recommend primary contact recreation, citing results of their own monitoring of bacteria that indi cate sewage and animal waste in the water.
As global warming continues to heat up Philly summers, the river will only get more tempting for anyone looking to cool off. In the meantime, the coalition of organiza tions petitioning to have the whole river as primary contact is waiting to see what the commission will do before deciding on legal options, says van Rossum.
“The water quality doesn’t define what you can do. What people are doing defines what you need to do for protection,” says Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeep er since 1994. “They’re misapplying the law and trying to obfuscate by saying it’s not safe everywhere, therefore we shouldn’t allow people on the river.”
The city’s two other boat ramps (Frankford and Tacony), which jet skiers use as well, are within Zone 3, though they are both tact recreation designation for every part of the mainstem except for an area around Philadelphia and Camden [water quality Zone 3 and upper Zone 4], where the des ignation is secondary contact recreation (think fishing and boating),” wrote com mission communications specialist Kate Schmidt in an email to Grid. “However, we have seen evidence of primary contact rec The water quality doesn’t define what you can do. What people are doing defines what you need to do for protection.”
Clockwise from opposite page: Mello jet skis on the Delaware River every weekend. Bruno Rodrigo (facing camera) and Rafael Ibero enjoy cooling off at the Pleasant Hill Park dock. Rodrigo makes the plunge from the dock into the river.
reation occurring in this stretch of river, for example, people using jet skis.”
A petition filed in July 2020 by organiza tions including the Delaware Riverkeeper Network demands that the commission officially designate the river for primary contact recreation throughout. That desig nation would mean that water quality in the river would be held to higher standards to protect the people who use it.
The Overground Railroad
Nonprofit Grannies Respond/Abuelas Responden provides compassion and support for immigrants by constance garcia-barrio O ne morning in the dead of win ter, Robert, 83, and his wife, Don na, 71, (their last name is withheld at the couple’s request) members of Grannies Respond/Abuelas Re sponden, a nonprofit that aids immigrants and asylum seekers, drove from their East Falls home to Center City’s Greyhound bus station to meet a Central American family just admitted to the United States.
city healing
“The mother, father and toddler had been riding buses for several days,” says Robert, a retired psychologist. “They were hungry and exhausted. The child was coughing, sneezing and feverish.”
8 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 RESPONDENRESPOND/ABUELASGRANNIESOFCOURTESY
Like other immi grants, the family had only been given a bus ticket — no food, money or other resourc es — to the city where a sponsor or relative would meet them, even though they faced a grueling four- or five-day ride. “We gave them water, hand-wipes and other sup plies,” Robert says. “We also bought socks — the child was barefoot — sandwiches and cold medicine and showed the mom how to administer it. They were so appreciative.”
“Sometimes, a woman arrives with one or two children after days on the bus,” says Judy Reitzes, 67, of Mount Airy, retired from teach ing English as a Second Language (ESL) at the Community College of Philadelphia and a Granny for two years. “I can give her a little break and watch her things while she goes to the ladies’ room,” Reitzes says. “Sometimes she just needs a smile or a hug.”
Members also offer details about resources Why not put a bunch of grannies on a bus and go down to the border to protest?”
— dan aymar-blair, founder of Grannies Respond, as paraphrased by Catherine Cole, executive director
Grannies Respond/Abuelas Responden, an entirely volunteer group founded in 2018 and headquartered in Beacon, New York, north of Manhattan, strives to give com passionate treatment to immigrants seeking refuge in the United States, says executive director Catherine Cole, 67. The organiza tion helps ensure that people have basic supplies and connect with the right bus.
Food and water are critical, but intangi bles make a difference, too.
“We also take books and toys to the bus sta tion when we know that the family coming through includes children. Friends, neigh bors, churches and other groups contribute needed items,” she says, mentioning the pub lic Facebook page for the chapter. “Donated clothes and toys take up half of my garage.”
“If that doesn’t work, pantomime usually succeeds,” Vandegrift says.
Grannies sometimes spend two or three hours in the bus station to make sure that the family catches the right bus to continue the“Newjourney.Jersey Transit keeps changing where the bus stops,” Donna says.
“Often when we get to the station, the people have taken a different bus,” Reitzes says. That sometimes happens when asylum seekers find a more direct route to their des tination. “It’s frustrating because we want to make sure they get where they need to go.”
Reitzes and Rivers, who, like many Gran nies, pair up for bus station visits, say that it has strengthened their friendship. Online training helps prepare Philly vol unteers, and most continue, hurdles and all.
“We’re above ground and we’re not secret,” Cole says. Grannies Respond belongs to a network of grassroots organizations that help immigrants and asylum seekers traveling to cities nationwide. “We connect with other groups via cellphone and email. I might get an email saying, ‘A parent, child and teen will arrive on bus number 555 at 7 a.m.,’ and I put out [the] word, asking for volunteers to meet them. I describe the group so that the Gran nies will know who to look for. We text each other updates like, ‘Snowstorm, bus strand ed.’ We also have a monthly coordinating Zoom call to share information.”
Reitzes also mentions an emotional el ement. “For me, it’s the overall sadness of people leaving their country for economic or political reasons, or due to gang violence. You’re giving up your land, your culture.”
“I didn’t retire to sit home all the time,” Reitzes says. “I’m an older woman trying to heal the world a little.” ◆
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 9 like HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), which assists people of all nationalities and religions with immigration issues.
Grannies Respond/Abuelas Responden grew from outrage at the Trump admin istration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents.
Opposite page: A young migrant child at the McAllen, Texas bus station holds a stuffed animal given to him by volunteers from Grannies Respond/Abuelas Responden. Volunteer Rachna Daryanani hands out goods to migrants at the border bus station.
In addition, Rivers, who immigrated with her family from Trinidad and Tobago de cades ago, brings exquisite sensitivity to the work. “You feel uprooted when you immi grate,” she says. “Part of you is never quite at home.”When approaching people, gender counts too, Donna finds. “People talk much more readily to a woman than to a man,” she says. Though many immigrants come from Hispanic countries, some arrive from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and other parts of the world and don’t speak English. Often, no one at the bus station speaks their language, Vandegrift notes. It’s a problem if they need to change a ticket. She leaps the language barrier with Google translator.
Despite spartan bus stations and some times-missing passengers, many Grannies find that the benefits outweigh the frustra tions. Cole speaks of having gained a stron ger public voice since she began the work. Robert and Donna as well as Vandegrift find satisfaction in helping people in great need.
Grannies inform one another about what they’ve given travelers and what people still need.“We provide diapers, snacks, clothes and feminine hygiene supplies,” says Kate Van degrift, 76, a retired addictions counselor and co-chair of Philly Grannies Respond.
“You don’t have to be a grandmother or a woman to join,” Cole emphasizes. “You just need to care about people forced to flee from theirReitzes’homeland.”desire to help came from years of contact with immigrant communities as an ESL instructor. Robert, for his part, keeps in mind that his grandparents were immigrants.“Ifthiscountry hadn’t let them in, I wouldn’t be here,” he says.
“Dan Aymar-Blair, a friend and the group’s founder, said, ‘Why not put a bunch of grannies on a bus and go down to the border to protest?’” Cole recalls. “Grandmothers are often the heart of the family. Thirty of us left New York City’s Union Square on July 31, 2018.” Thanks to social media postings, the caravan swelled to 200 people from different states by the time it reached McAllen, Texas, “the new Ellis Island,” as Megan Martinez, a Catholic Charities volunteer from McAllen, puts it. “We stuffed backpacks with essentials and delivered them to asylum seekers across the border,” Cole says. Unwilling to let the protest end there, Cole channeled the group’s energy into “the Overground Railroad.”
It’s tricky at times to spot the expected travelers.“Theykeep a low profile,” says D’Anne Rivers, 67, a retired nurse and a Granny for two years. “You look for people who seem exhausted or you ask the bus driver if he’s heard passengers speaking Spanish. When I approach people, I say ‘Soy volun taria,’” Rivers says. “I don’t want them to think I’m with ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. People are also less guarded because I have brown skin.”
Other issues may arise.
The recent quiet sale of the Greyhound ter minal — prime real estate with its 11th and Filbert location, and all the more so with the proposed arena — heightens uncertainty among bus riders, including immigrants. A different terminal location may cause con fusion and inconvenience if it’s moved to an outlyingGranniesarea.may face other hurdles.
“Once, when we went to meet a family, it was cold outside,” Robert says. “They were waiting for a male relative to meet them. When the man arrived, he refused the jackets we’d brought even though the family had only lightweight clothing. It was a whole matter of pride. He wasn’t going to accept anything from this white man. That was a difficult and important observation.”
The Tricycle’s name is a reference to its trio of co-owners — husband and wife Michael “Cycle Mycle” Brown and Adena Brewington-Brown, plus Isaiah Urbino — but also a nod to African-American inven tor Matthew Cherry, who patented a threewheeled, human-powered vehicle in 1888.
Hailed at its opening (by neighborhood news site MoreThanTheCurve.com) as “the only Black-owned restaurant in Conshohock en,” The Tricycle is an outgrowth of Brown’s Gandhi-esque personal motto: “If you want change, be the change.” Rather than com plaining about less-than-stellar experiences at area bike shops or the lack of BIPOC rep resentation in the local cycling scene, Brown and his partners opted to build a business to meet the need they had identified.
The Tricycle Shop co-owners Michael “Cycle Mycle” Brown and Isaiah Urbino have found community and opportunity in
PHOTOGRAPHadversity.BY LISA SCHAFFER
After the Flood
Conshohocken’s bike shop-café weathers the storm with the help of community by sophia d. merow A t its height, it reached three feet. The color of chocolate milk, the water flooded The Tricycle Shop’s first-floor retail and café space, submerging bistro tables and bal ance bikes, buoying trash cans and stacks of paper cups, lapping at the midsections of mannequins sporting branded jerseys.
“The way I see it is as an equalizer,” Brown says in a slickly produced (by big-time bicy cle manufacturer Specialized) video on The Tricycle’s website, “a place of inclusion, somewhere that you can come to and feel welcomed.” The Tricycle’s tagline? “The New Hub of Conshohocken’s Biking Community.”
In the aftermath of Ida, that same commu nity rallied around the fledgling establish ment, already recognized as a one-stop shop for tune-ups, sweet rides and smoothies to die for (e.g., “The Conshy Cup,” a blend of chocolate, peanut butter, banana and espresso). When the floodwaters subsided, volunteers spent hours re moving the mud and damaged goods left in their wake. A GoFundMe campaign has raised over $30,000, an influx of cash co-owner Urbino calls “instrumental” in helping The Tricycle “stay afloat during a difficult winterHavingseason.”weathered the literal storm, The Tricycle has redoubled its efforts to give back to the community that sustained it. The team has done Earth Day outreach and taken area youngsters on shop tours. They’ve partnered with Specia lized and youth cycling nonprofit Outride to build bikes for a program at William T. Tilden Middle School in Southwest Philly’s Paschall neighborhood. The Tricycle is also forging ahead on its mission to bring people together around cycling — “no matter what ethnic ity, self identity, age or religion,” Urbino emphasizes. Group rides roll out from the shop, some organized in conjunction with such outfits as the Kings Rule Together and Queens Rule Together cycling clubs (Grid #149, October 2021). The Tricycle hosts bike maintenance clinics. You can meet the roast ers from Greenstreet Coffee Co. or the folks behind the Philly Bike Expo. You can browse an art market or hear Marlon Monc rieffe discuss his new book, “Desire, Discrimina tion, Determination: Black Champions in Cycling,” or treat yourself to a caramel latte. And The Tricycle has only just begun its three-wheeled roll. In July, shortly after the Conshohocken shop celebrated its one-year anniversary, the owners disclosed to Grid that they had acquired West Philly’s Velo jawn bike shop and planned to make it a sec ond location. They were also excited about a fall “bikepacking” collaboration with Norris Square’s Keystone Bicycle Co. aimed at show casing Philadelphia’s winning combination of beautiful trails and rich history. “During all of this tumultuous first year,” explained Urbino, “opportunities have also presented themselves in a flood.” ◆
Hurricane Ida’s September 2021 ram page through the Philadelphia region could scarcely have come at a worse time for The Tricycle, a bike shop-café hybrid located in the historic Miller’s House near the Spring Mill train station — and the Schuylkill Riv er Trail — in Conshohocken (see also, Grid #146, July 2021). When the rains came and the Schuylkill spilled over its banks, The Tricycle had been open for less than two months.
10 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 retail
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Don’t throw away a perfectly good opportunity to come and get trashy withan evening of fun while supporting sustainability in the arts!
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 11
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WHEELSCHANGEOF
ome are compression-shortwearing athletes who trek through the trails of the Wissahickon or be side the Schuylkill River. Some are commuters, taking the city’s bike lanes to and from work every day. Others are “wheelie” kids, groups of teenagers and young adults pulling tricks down Broad Street, not a single care or helmet in sight. All of them are cyclists.
S
12 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022
DENNISDREW
Biking has been praised as a healthy, environmentally-conscious activity that can build community, but there hasn’t always been equal room on the road for all riders. Historically, BIPOC bike enthusiasts have been overlooked when it comes to inclusion in the white male-dominated activity. And those interested in performing tricks are viewed suspiciously by the City of Phil adelphia due to the lack of safety precau tions. After the 2017 rideout that overtook the Vine Street Expressway, police have warned bikers against dangerous tricks, mainly “swerving.” A hazardous stunt of ten done for social media clout, swerving is the act of riding a bicycle into traffic and swerving at the last moment. Adding to the negativity cyclists of color face is the hostil ity toward and subsequent crackdowns on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs)and dirt bikes. Working to counter those negative per ceptions and to make biking more acces sible for marginalized communities are groups like Neighborhood Bike Works, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and Kings Rule Together/Queens Rule To gether cycling clubs.
“There’s a lot of room for development within the city of Philadelphia as far as representing people of color in the world of cycling,” says Malaku Mekonnen, youth cycling program manager with the Bicycle Coalition. Mekonnen says that the majority of people in his program are people of color. He explains how even the smallest of inter actions in cycling can set a tone for riders who don’t see themselves reflected within the community. “If you go into a traditional bike shop, you’ll see white faces behind the counter, on the posters, on the advertise ments, and so it will give you the feeling of ‘I don’tBikingbelong.’”canbecome expensive depending on the bike and gear you choose, but there are other factors like representation or lack of bike lanes that keep cycling’s audience from From left, Kimberly Huggins, Curran J and Jenna Foley stop under the Pencoyd Bridge during a Sunday ride with Kings Rule Together and Queens Rule Together.
Organizations work to bring equality to biking in representation and style story by kiersten adams
“Everyone has their own individual style, and I respect all different styles across the board because it’s on the spectrum of a bicycle. And that’s how they like to express themselves. I like how self expression is a tool that gets people to come together. It’s amazing and in vigorating at the same time.”
◆ HOWARDKYOSHI
malaku mekonnen, Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia youth cycling program manager growing. Mekonnen and the Bicycle Coalition have sought equality through representation on all fronts of cycling. “What the [coalition] does is that they make an initiative, their goal and purpose in hiring people of color, a community that reflects what the community looks like. So the Bicycle Coalition has put forth a great effort to get more and more peo ple of color actually into the world of cycling,” MekonnenMekonnensays.says
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 13
“More kids on bikes is not a bad thing. It’s hard for people to relate to stuff that they have no experience with. They don’t see it from our lens, and they’re not open-minded enough to see these kids can be out here rob bing, stealing, but they are riding bikes. Yes, it can be a little dangerous sometimes. Yes, we want them to be safe. But when you are a kid, you’re gonna do things like a kid — unless you have the direction of adults to really give you that guidance,” Curran J states. With more representation comes more of
an appreciation for the styles of cycling or biking, an evolution that Kiyoshi Howard, youth programs instructor and mechanic at Neighborhood Bike Works, finds exciting.
There’s a lot of room for development within the city of Philadelphia as far as representing people of color in the world of cycling.”
Many Philadelphians know the anxiety of driving through the city when sudden ly, a horde of teenagers comes riding down the street, front wheels sky high, swerving between cars and incoming traffic. Curran J tries to create a sense of respect and mutual understanding between such riders, the ma jority of whom are young Black and Brown teens, and residents who criticize the activity.
Mustafa WorksNeighborhoodAbdul-Rashid,Bikeyouthprogramsdirector,leadsayouthride.
there are still improve ments to be made. As bike culture continues to evolve, can there be space for riders inter ested in the less traditional forms of riding? The reality is that not everyone wants to do distance biking. Some want to pop wheel ies and perform stunts, so Curran J, founder of Kings Rule Together, is holding space for those bikers, too.
“I think in order to respect something, you need to understand it. I understand it because I was once that kid,” Curran J says. He believes that if Philly invested in clinics that provide structured platforms where riders compete by performing tricks, such as the BMX stunt shows that happen nationally, maybe riders would channel their energy into something constructive and positive that still allows them to do what they do best.
14 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 mobility in urban streetscapes, by offering new employment options, and by providing safer environments for pedestrians, cyclists andAsdrivers.consumers, we can have a say in whether the benefits balance the costs. Locally, notable public and private efforts strive to make Philly’s response to last mile delivery demands more sustainable. Chris topher Puchalsky, director of policy and strategic initiatives for the Office of Trans
THE MILE
HARDEST
The private and public sector must work together to find sustainable solutions to the increasing demand for home delivery story by marilyn anthony I n business there are two cer tainties: convenience is never without cost, and sudden changes — disrup tions — create new opportunities. The escalating demand for “last mile deliv ery,” the process by which industries and companies ship goods directly to the cus tomer, is a textbook example of costs and opportunities.Evenifyouare among the estimated 157.4 million Amazon Prime subscribers in the United States, having that package dropped at your doorstep is hardly free. Associated hidden costs might include additional vehi cle emission pollution, infrastructure stress, increased risks to driver and pedestrian safety, and potential threats to the viability of brick-and-mortar retailers. Innovative solutions to delivery oppor tunities might create benefits that help off set the costs — by switching to alternative forms of transportation, by reimagining
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS BAKER EVENS
Rudi Saldia of Bennett Compost collects compost from household customers using his bike trailer.
chris puchalsky, director for policy and strategic initiatives for the Philadelphia Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability (OTIS)
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 15
First Delivery CEO Nakkache wanted to help Main Street businesses better compete with larger companies. Online shopping and e-commerce were already growing rap idly pre-pandemic but have exploded since 2020. While there has been some slowdown in recent months, no one expects convenient home delivery to disappear. Predictions are for the global last mile delivery market, val ued in 2021 at $40.5 billion, to generate $123.7
portation, Infrastructure and Sustainabili ty (OTIS), Andrew Nakkache, CEO of First Delivery, and Tim Carney, head of market operations for The Rounds, are among those implementing novel solutions. Puchalsky views the urban delivery chal lenge as less about the last mile and more about “the hardest part — the last 50 feet be tween the vehicle at the curb and the custom er’s doorstep.” More than ever, multiple users are vying for curb space — “deliveries of Am azon packages, all the Uber and Lyft drivers, bikeshares, the list goes on.” Puchalsky’s of fice recognizes the intensifying demand for curb use. “It was never just about parking.”
OTIS’s ef forts for citywide curbside management, though, are hindered by a lack of data and back-office tools. As OTIS works with City Council and the Philadelphia City Planning Commission to implement changes better suited to today’s curb usage, there are measures businesses can take to help relieve current curbside pressures. Puchalsky encourages busi nesses to schedule more off-peak deliveries. And he notes that building well-designed loading docks for new construction is very effective in streamlining delivery. Other developments his office is track ing include proposals Chicago and New York are floating to levy a package delivery surcharge. Paying a small fee may incen tivize consumers to shop locally or at least consolidate their orders. Cities would use the revenue generated by the surcharge to fund infrastructure and transportation in vestment. At this time there is no similar proposal being put forth in Philadelphia.
PHOTO COURTESY CHRIS PUCHALSKY
congestion to safety, to discouraging peo ple from driving or biking, a whole host of issues arise when people take the moving lane to Puchalskyunload.”sees a number of potential solutions, from smart loading zones to pro viding protective lanes for e-cargo bikes. A pilot program of extended loading zones on Chestnut Street is a first step in revisiting loading zone regulations, many dating to the 1990s when deliveries mainly occurred during regular business hours.
billion in 2030. That’s a big potential market small businesses will want to tap.
Nakkache believes that “in 10 years there will be very few businesses that will survive without delivery. Maybe if you have a cult following like Angelo’s Pizza, but otherwise businesses need to embrace delivery.” He describes his company as a “delivery orches trator,” primarily linking restaurants with a host of delivery service providers through First’s proprietary software. The intent is to find the most cost- and time-efficient deliv ery options on a dynamic basis, while also capturing customer data to strengthen each restaurant’s connection to its customers.
For many small businesses, managing the complex, costly logistics of on-demand deliv ery is beyond their capacity. Nakkache en courages owners to ask for advice. It doesn’t have to be painful, and it can mean the dif ference between making or losing money on every home delivery. Demand for First’s services has fueled rapid growth. Original ly launched in Philadelphia, the company is now operating across the United States and Canada, with Australia next. Compared to other cities, Nakkache thinks Philly could improve its delivery in frastructure. The city’s grid design makes street navigation easy, but gas-powered vehicles still dominate. He would like to see mobility options increased, perhaps by designating “mobility streets” reserved for pedestrians, cyclists, scooters and vehicles under 200 pounds. He also notes that other cities are introducing delivery by scooters, drones and robots.
When [delivery drivers] don’t have curb space, they take the moving lane. It’s almost always problematic ... ”
A 2021 report prepared for the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) urged urban leaders to consider ways to mitigate environmental downsides of increased last mile deliveries. The report encourages adopting policies and practices to reduce carbon emissions, improve road safe ty, support economic recovery — especially of small businesses — and promote social and environmental justice. Innovations un derway around the world as well as some in early or proposal stages are described. These innovations include the conver sion of underutilized spaces such as parking garages to delivery “micro hubs,” setting up public parcel lockers, improving tac tics for curbside management, establish ing low-emission zones, advocating for zero-emission vehicles, and making digital e-commerce support available for local busi nesses to compete online.
Puchalsky’s office clearly has the NACTO goals in mind as they consider a range of possible solutions in Philadelphia. Spurred by the number of complaints his office re ceives about blocked traffic lanes, his team prioritized improving curbside manage ment tactics. “When [delivery drivers] don’t have curb space, they take the moving lane. It’s almost always problematic: from
“The biggest thing that we’ve been grate ful for in Philly is to see the investment within the bike lane network,” Carney says. “Investment in bike infrastructure year over year allows us to be innovative in our ap proach to delivery and safety. It’s exciting to be part of a company that’s helping to craft how [urban delivery] evolves in the U.S.”
Consider walking or biking to local busi nesses for routine errands. Use parcel dropoff points where possible. Ask the companies you order from online to invest in more sus
All indications point to the need for more balanced city planning and business ad aptations, shifting the balance away from traditional car and truck delivery to more sustainable methods. At the current rate of growth, the World Economic Forum forecasts a nearly 30% increase in fossil fuel-powered delivery vehicles in inner cities by 2030, add ing to emissions levels and congestion.
16 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 Carney, head of market operations for The Rounds, seems to share the desire for more delivery options. “Last mile” he says, “is a complex world where we need multiple modalities to achieve success.”
The more we talk about it [last mile innovation] the faster the ideas will come into action.”
E-biker Rudi Saldia is a seasoned “last mile delivery” professional. He has been a bike messenger, food deliverer and pedicab operator; now he is lead collections staff er for Bennett Compost. Saldia enjoyed all those jobs because he loves to ride a bike. But what he especially values about his five years as an e-bike cyclist for Bennett is a regular paycheck with benefits. He’d like to see more places in the city to lock up delivery bikes, improved driver education about sharing the road, and more compa nies professionalizing the delivery role as a living-wage job, not a gig economy dead end.
Founded in Philly in 2020 and now op erating in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Miami, The Rounds offers its members home delivery of zero-waste sustainable goods. Consumers who want to replenish regular-use items like coffee, toilet paper, and cleaning products conveniently and without single-use plastics can opt in or out of home delivery on a weekly basis. Carney thinks the company distinguishes itself on two counts: the quality of the products they offer, locally sourced where feasible, and their use of e-bikes for last mile delivery.
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As difficult and painful as the process sometimes was, OTIS’s Puchalsky reports many positive outcomes from expanding Philly’s bike lanes. Ridership grew and safety improved not just for cyclists but for pedestri ans and drivers. The City plans to more than double the size of the Indego e-bike-sharing network over the next five years.
— rudi saldia, collections manager at Bennett Compost tainable delivery methods. Shorten the sup ply chain by sourcing as much as you can from local suppliers. And don’t lose sight of the need to professionalize the jobs of essen tial, high-value delivery workers. Saldia offers a first step toward last mile innovation: more customers could ask Am azon, how can I get my packages delivered without that big truck blocking the street? “The more we talk about it,” Saldia believes, “the faster the ideas will come into action.” Saldia is a seasoned “last mileprofessional.delivery”
While Puchalsky works on urban strategic initiatives, and Nakkache and Carney offer enterprise solutions, essential workers like Saldia are biking to your door. From their different perspectives, each of these people working on last mile challenges had sugges tions for how consumers’ choices matter.
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The City’s plan to reduce vehicle emis sions is focused mostly on electrifying City owned vehicles and promoting other modes of transportation: walking, cycling and public transit.
MOTORISTSSTRANDED
“Philadelphia has more cars than park ing spaces, so to take any spaces off the street, people resent it,” says Rob Graff, a transportation electrification consultant who served on Philadelphia’s Electric Ve hicle Policy Task Force. Although only 68 people ever set up the charging posts, the complaints led the City to suspend the pro gram in 2017 and then wind it down based on recommendations in a report by the task force. Since then, the City has not intro duced any other programming to help EV owners without dedicated parking spaces charge their cars. Without easy access to charging, EV owners have been forced to get creative.
2022 who park on the street are finding solu tions to one of the trickiest challenges for the growth of the electric vehicle industry.
Ed Edge bought his Chevrolet Bolt in February 2022 when his Toyota Prius died. Edge isn’t able to charge his car at home and so tends to plug it in while he works out at the Planet Fitness at Quartermaster Plaza in South Philadelphia. “For normal people the range is really advantageous. This one gets about 330 kilometers per charge, so you might need to charge it once a week or once every two weeks.” Edge’s work has him on the road more than normal, which means he often has to charge at highway rest stops. “It takes a little more planning if you’re going on long Meredithtrips.”Nutting, who lives in Fishtown and who bought a plug-in hybrid Subaru Crosstrek in 2020, doesn’t think Philadelphia is ready for widespread EV ownership. “I live on a very narrow street and the plug on my car is on the street side, so there’s no way I could even pretend to plug it into my house and run a cord across.” Nutting charges her car either while grocery shopping or when she parks it in a nearby apartment building garage that has chargers. “Unless you have a garage or the City goes big on charging ports, having a purely electric car just isn’t realis tic for folks that want to lessen their carbon footprint — not to mention gas expense — but have to drive,” she says. Edge, Verbovetskaya, Nutting and the other Philadelphia electric vehicle owners BAKER EVENS
“Cities aren’t gas stations,” Knapp says, “and so why would a city with limited fund ing and many problems to address priori tize those limited dollars for private vehicle charging?” The 2018 Electric Vehicle Policy Task Force report found that a third of Phil adelphia households lack a car, and that EV owners have household incomes on average more than three times the Philadelphia av erage of $38,770, underscoring that wealthy residents would benefit most from public dollars spent on charging infrastructure.
Verbovetskaya’s family makes do with half-hour charging sessions at the super market. They bought the car in 2021 mainly to drive their toddler around but don’t end up driving a lot of miles. “It works for us because a majority of our trips are under 10 miles roundtrip and we’ve only gone about 3,000 miles in our first year of ownership.”
The City of Philadelphia has no plan to accommodate the inevitable transition to electric cars story by bernard brown I n 2007 the City of Philadelphia launched the Electric Vehicle Parking Space program, in which EV owners could apply for permission to put a charging post at the curb in front of their house. The parking space by the charging post would be for electric vehicles only. Since few people own electric vehicles, the homeowner effectively gained a private street parking spot, which did not go over well with neighbors.
“Of all the issues of charging private vehi cles, how to charge people who don’t have a dedicated place to park is huge, ” says transportation electrification consultant Graff. Although part of the issue has to do with electrical infrastructure and setting up chargers, “it’s a real challenge because it’s really a parking problem,” he says.
18 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER
Alevtina Verbovetskaya charges her 2018 Nissan Leaf at the grocery store, but she has noticed more-creative rigs near her house in Fishtown.
Nonetheless, the City plans to do noth ing to expand EV charging infrastructure.
“There’s certainly a greenhouse gas reduction benefit, but not a Vision Zero benefit, not a congestion benefit,” says Christine Knapp, interviewed before she stepped down as the director of the Office of Sustainability.
Aside from being more egalitarian and having much lower upfront costs than driv ing an EV, public transit and human-powered transportation produce less greenhouse gas emissions than electric vehicles. Cars require a lot of energy to manufacture, including what goes into mining and processing the
In the meantime, emissions from vehi cles driving on city streets are rising. Cur rently transportation accounts for 26% of Philadelphia’s emissions, according to the City’s 2019 Greenhouse Gas Inventory, and a little less than half of that comes from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles driving on our streets (the bigger chunk of transporta tion emissions comes from air travel out of Philadelphia International Airport). These on-road emissions increased 9% between 2006 and 2019. Replacing fossil-fuel-powered vehicles with electric vehicles would bring those emissions down, especially if they use electricity from renewable sources.
“A couple blocks away someone has a Level 2 charger installed. They pull it across the sidewalk,” she says. “There is a Tesla nearby with some kind of weird extension cord thing happening over their backyard fence in an alley.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS
Fundamentally, the City’s plans for sus tainable transportation assume that Phila delphians don’t need privately-owned cars, even though two thirds of the city’s house holds have decided that they do.
alevtina verbovetskaya, Nissan Leaf owner Alevtina Verbovetskaya charges her Nissan Leaf at the EV charging station in the Fishtown Crossings shopping center.
“We’re all working towards this societal utopia where you can walk and ride your bike everywhere, and you can catch a bus any time you want. But we are so far from that.”To the extent that the City does play a role in increasing the number of charging stations available to private vehicle owners, they will be in commercial parking lots and garages, Knapp says, though there is cur rently no program to incentivize chargers for general Althoughuse.electric vehicle buyers have tended to be relatively wealthy so far, Masur points out that this will likely change as auto mobile manufacturers produce more of them and at lower price points. General Motors, for example, has pledged to produce only electric passenger vehicles by 2035, and the Bolt has joined Nissan’s Leaf with a price tag under $30,000.In2020 about a million light-duty (as op posed to commercial trucks and buses) elec A couple blocks away someone has a Level 2 charger installed. They pull it across the sidewalk.”
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 19 lithium, steel, glass and plastic. Walking and cycling, in particular, skip the emissions that go into producing a two-ton vehicle, however it ends up being fueled. Public transit in Phil adelphia is already largely electric (regional rail, trolleys, subway-surface lines and some bus routes), and given SEPTA’s plans to re place many of its diesel-powered buses with battery-powered ones, it will be more so in the future (though SEPTA does produce some of its electricity by burning fossil gas at its controversial Nicetown power plant).
“It is a well-intentioned but naïve phi losophy, and so anti-populist and elitist,” says David Masur, the executive director of PennEnvironment, of the City’s approach.
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PennEnvironment opposed the repeal of the Electric Vehicle Parking Space program, according to Masur, who is frustrated that the City hasn’t tried other models of incen tivizing chargers for private EV owners.
Meredith Nutting finds a tight spot to park her Subaru Crosstrek on her Fishtown street, where there is no EV charging infrastructure.
Graff pointed out that these public charging stations can face problems with vandalism or theft, targeted by people who cut off cables to sell the copper wiring to scrapyards, as has happened in Los Angeles and Fresno, California. In Europe “bring your own cable” systems have solved this problem, though “for whatever reason that system hasn’t launched in the U.S.,” Graff says. As Philadelphians swap gasoline for elec tricity to power their cars, the capacity of the power grid has to grow to accommodate the extra load. According to Brian Ahrens, a PECO spokesperson, the utility is using data from EV drivers as well as from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Com mission to forecast charging demand. “Over the next five years we’re making about $6 billion in investments in the utility grid to ensure our infrastructure is reliable,” Ahrens says. In April PECO launched an incentive program for commercial and industrial cus tomers that offers $2,000 rebates per port and $3,000 in Environmental Justice Areas, as defined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. “Providing eq uitable access to charging is going to be one of the next challenges we face as we electrify transit and move from early adopters to mass market adoption,” Ahrens says. So far, the public charging ports do not ap pear to be in lower-income neighborhoods. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center map of charging stations shows a dense cluster of chargers across Center City and University City. In North Philadelphia neighborhoods outside of the gentrifying river wards, there are a total of two. Likewise there are very few chargers in West Philadelphia outside of University City.
20 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 tric vehicles were on the road in the United States, according to the International Energy Agency, up from about 600,000 in 2017, when City Council suspended the Electric Vehicle Parking Space program. Philly electric vehi cles are also multiplying. In 2021, 1,477 EVs were registered in the city, according to Penn DOT registration reports, up from 272 in 2017. These numbers are only expected to climb. As they do, Philly drivers will increasingly need access to chargers. In the foreseeable fu ture of a country leaving internal combustion cars behind, many Philadelphia drivers could face the prospect of either being stranded with a gasoline-powered dinosaur or having nowhere to charge their electric car. In the meantime, other cities are piloting solutions that, at scale, could solve the prob lem of charging EVs in neighborhoods dom inated by street parking. For example, New York City is partnering with electric utility Con Edison to install 100 curbside chargers for public use. Seattle City Light has launched a service to install public chargers on light posts at the request of nearby EV owners.
“People are going to keep buying cars. They need them to run errands, drop off kids,” Masur says. “Of course we need clean in frastructure for cars in the meantime. The market is moving faster than policy. This is coming, whether you like it or not.”
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22 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 CITYGRIDLOCK The process of Washington Avenue’s redesign falls short of democracy and fairness
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 23
story
Point Breeze Community Development Coalition president Albert Littlepage stands with his son Zion at the intersection of South 17th Street and Washington Avenue. Littlepage believes that “traffic economy measures … can be put in place in the present conditions of the road.”
During the initial feedback process, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia wrote in a blog post: “For the record, we believe Option A [three lanes] is the best for Washington Avenue. But we encourage you to decide for yourself.”
hargravelindsay
As Sean Blanda wrote in The Philadel phia Citizen, the repaving process began in 2013 with a series of public meetings con ducted by the Philadelphia Office of Trans portation, Infrastructure and Sustainability (OTIS). It then conducted a series of traffic and route analyses as well as business and parking surveys over the course of the next seven years, right up until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We really do believe that Washington Ave. is an emergency thoroughfare. That’s what it was designed for,” he said. “But one of the things we also believe in is there are certain traffic economy measures that can be put in place in the present conditions of the road.” Littlepage thus feels that proroad diet arguments about “safety” are more or less a red herring. by photography by chris baker evens
J ust as there is no agreed-upon definition for “gentrification” or “safe ty,” there are no universal standards when it comes to gathering commu nity feedback.
Albert Littlepage, president of Point Breeze Community Development Coalition, noted that he had mixed feelings about re paving at first, but was above all concerned that it was first presented as an issue of safe ty as opposed to bikeability.
We really do believe that Washington Ave. is an thoroughfare.emergencyThat’s what it was designed for.”
— albert littlepage, president of Point Breeze Community Development Coalition
Still, the City continued to gather feed back from residents and businesses sur rounding Washington Avenue, the groups that would be most impacted by any poten tial repaving decisions. During the pandem ic, OTIS gathered 5,458 survey responses in four languages and mailed 5,400 physical postcards to residential homes surrounding the avenue up to two blocks out. They also conducted 37 meetings with 26 Registered Community Organizations (RCOs) and civic organizations and met with 80% of the 187 businesses projected to be impacted by the potential parking and loading changes the repaving would bring These surveys presented three options: a three-lane option, a four-lane option, and a “mixed” option. There was no option for the five-lane status quo to remain.
A decade-long South Philadelphia streets fiasco demonstrates this idea in a perfect microcosm: Washington Avenue and its controversialWashingtonrepaving.Avenue is a wide corridor housing businesses and residences on either side of a five-lane road. Multiple buses use it to cross the city from east to west, and there is parking on both sides of the street. While there is a bike lane in each direction, they are unprotected and the lines demarcating them faded long ago. It stretches across the Grays Ferry, Point Breeze and Italian Market neigh borhoods and is historically home to diverse Black, Latinx, Italian and Vietnamese com munities. It is also an emergency evacuation route, providing a critical passage during snowstorms and other disasters such as the explosions that occured on June 21, 2019 at the now-shuttered Philadelphia Energy Solu tions refinery. If you ride the 64 bus toward Columbus Boulevard heading east, you’ll pass a solid ribbon of contractor and mechanic supply shops. There are also the essentials: daycare, salon, wireless store, dollar store, laundro mat, gym. There are cultural reminders of the communities that built the neighborhood: Vietnamese restaurants and plazas, a church, a park with trees, small family businesses. Then there are the obvious signs of gentri fication: an axe-throwing range, vintage boutiques, a microbrewery, development companies. You’ll see newly built high-rises to the north and hear the rush of the highway to the east. You’ll notice some of the largest appliance stores in town, and the gleaming Target at Broad Street.
So what is it exactly about bike lanes that bring up fears of gentrification? Some see bikes and bike lanes as a symptom of white suburbanites displacing longtime city res idents, but no data has been presented to prove that argument. Unfortunately, the sur veys did not ask for any demographic or eco nomic information from respondents, and so there is no way to know whether there is consensus within any given community.
“Our city is being gentrified. Whether it’s North Philadelphia, South Philadelphia or West Philadelphia,” she says. “Now, so many people want to minimize their drive, they want to bike, they want to walk. Well how do you do that? You leave the suburbs and you come into the city. Well, there’s a problem.”
Yet the issue has touched Davies person ally as well. The father of a one-year-old, Davies says that traffic safety concerns are already a part of his child’s life. “It’s definite ly a part of why we’re on this side of Wash ington Avenue with our daycare,” he said. He also noted that when his child turns five, he will need to cross Washington to attend elementary school, adding to his concern about safety on the avenue. To many older residents, the decision to not include a five-lane option at all felt like a pro-gentrification decision in itself. There was no way to adequately voice their preference.ClaudiaSherrod, resident and longtime community member, says the changes would make her neighborhood at 9th and Washington “more like New York.”
While Washington is on the City’s “High Injury Network,” some activists claim that there are city roads far more dangerous and in greater need of reconfiguration.
Sher rod, an 81-year-old resident who has lived in the neighborhood her entire life and drives her car every day, began giving feedback at the very beginning of the process about 10 years“Weago.told [Mike Carroll, the City’s deputy managing director for transportation], ‘No, we don’t want that.’ We are comfortable with what we have; we appreciate what we have; we like togetherness — the closeness of the people when we come and shop on Washington Avenue. We didn’t want to change it from what it is,” Sherrod said. Among the options presented by the City, there emerged an overwhelming preference (71%) for the three-lane option, the most radical reduction. And while the survey was essentially equal in its volume of digital and physical outreach, residents in favor of the status quo argued that the City has not sufficiently engaged with their viewpoint.
This problem, she says, is that the white people who move into the city displace Black and Brown residents in order to cre ate an all-white enclave.
24 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022
“Philadelphia’s car culture and the stan dard operating procedure of deferring to the position of near neighbors, especially those near neighbors who are politically connect ed, remain a significant hurdle,” the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia wrote in a recentAlejandrostatement.Morales lives a few blocks off Washington Avenue and has lived and bi cycled around Philadelphia for the past 20 years. He gave his feedback in favor of the three-lane option and supported it through his membership in the Bicycle Coalition. He pointed out that it is a gross generalization to assume that longtime residents of Wash ington Avenue don’t prefer safer routes for biking and walking. In fact, he said, it’s even more important to the low-income residents who can’t afford cars.
One of them is Melissa Robbins, an in dependent civil rights activist. While Rob bins lives in Northeast Philadelphia, she has been part of the vocal minority advocating for an unchanged Washington Avenue.
Andrew Davies is a member and volunteer with 5th Square, an urbanist political action committee that prioritizes street and traffic safety — and favors the three-lane option.
In response to the private meetings that were held after the public meetings, Mo rales responded, “It was largely very disillu sioning to be engaged in the public process, to feel like your voice is being heard, that you’re being seen as a resident, that your concerns are being spoken to, because all of that engagement was so great.” Morales believed that with so much in formation being presented in the surveys, he was being trusted as a community mem ber to make an informed decision. So he felt that the city was cutting him off from that process by holding these private meetings.
The City’s response was to host a series of closed-door, invite-only meetings where handpicked guests could voice their opinions.
Of course, Washington Avenue already has bike lanes and sidewalks. Three-lane advocates are asking to use them safely and as intended.
Additionally, it is evident that gentrifica tion has already affected Washington Ave nue and South Philadelphia while the road remained as it was.
After a decade of opinions, outreach, more outreach, feedback, more feedback, a pan demic and two Councilmembers’ decisions, OTIS decided on a “mixed” option, which had no popularity with any group at any point.
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It was largely very disillusioning to be engaged in the public process …”
— alejandro morales, South Philadelphia resident
While Councilmember Mark Squilla’s district covers much of the project area, the area between Grays Ferry Avenue and Broad Street is Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson’s district. And while Squilla intro duced the necessary parking legislation to get paving underway, Johnson did not.
Councilmanic prerogative means that even if the majority preference for three lanes had gone through to the Councilmem bers or if OTIS went with the minority pref erence for the five-lane status-quo option, it still might have been hindered by a single person.Thisraises the main question: How can the City expect to convince the community to engage with a system when one person can undermine a democratic decision?
Alejandro Morales lives a few blocks off Washington Avenue and has lived and bicycled around Philadelphia for the past 20 years.
As of late July, Squilla’s office had stated that the eight-week weather-dependent pav ing process would begin in September 2022. While the road will be repaved and restriped from Grays Ferry Avenue to 4th Street, only the portions in Squilla’s district, from 4th Street to 11th Street, will get the protected bike lanes, speed cushions, bus boarding is lands and other traffic safety improvements.
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 25
The tract sits across Port Royal Avenue from the 340 acres of the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education’s grounds and across Eva Street from the Upper Rox borough Reservoir. Green Tree Run, one of Philadelphia’s few first-order streams (meaning it has no tributaries — rare in a city that has turned so many of its small wa terways into storm sewers), begins its jour ney to the Schuylkill River in a steep ravine at the Boy Scout Tract, which earned its name by hosting camping Boy Scout troops from the 1950s to the ’80s. The Schuylkill Center acquired the land in 1987 through the will of Eleanor Houston Smith, whose family had earlier donated the land that in 1965 became the Schuylkill Valley Nature Center, later renamed the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.
A plan by the Schuylkill Center for En vironmental Education to explore selling this 24-acre wooded parcel to developers has activated local open space activists and environmentalists who are preparing to fight to keep the sprawl that has consumed so much of the region from devouring the Boy Scout Tract as well.
Below the wooded Boy Scout Tract, the dusty outline of a small development called Port Royal Reserve provides a nightmare preview of what could happen if builders get their hands on the land, according to Jennie Love, owner of Love ’n Fresh Flow ers. The sign at the 10-acre site announces six houses starting at $1,500,000. The devel Leaked memos and emails reveal the Schuylkill Center for Education’sEnvironmentalplans to sell 24 wooded acres for development story by brownbernard photography by bynumtroy Out in the Open
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 27 •
The Boy Scout Tract is 24 forested acres that was acquired by the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in 1987. It is now under threat of high-end development.
A walk along Port Royal Avenue in Up per Roxborough offers a tour of land pres ervation victories and losses, with the Boy Scout Tract, fate uncertain, in the middle.
T he canopy of red oaks, sugar maples and tulip trees provided a respite from the 94-degree heat on a July visit to the Boy Scout Tract. The cooling provided by the trees was a reminder of the importance of preserving tree canopy as global warming raises the temperatures in Philadelphia. The calls of blue jays, Carolina wrens, eastern towhees and red-eyed vireos provided a soundtrack along deer trails through the woods.
The Upper Roxborough Reservoir, targeted for development in the early 2000s, is now part of Philadelphia’s park system. Neigh bors stroll on a path circling its basin, and its slopes bristle with newly planted trees.
Gordon then approached Weil bacher about the Boy Scout Tract, offering to buy it for about $1.5 million and including a conservation easement to limit develop ment beyond the two houses and barn. Conservation easements are a popular open space preservation tool for private lands. A restriction placed on the proper ty’s deed limits development, so that even future owners are restricted in what they can build. Sometimes a third party pays for the easement, compensating the land owner for limiting development and the resulting loss in the land’s resale value. In other cas es the land owner can use the value of the easement as a tax deduction.
ThisTract.wasnot
By wildlife.”
“We had an all-staff meeting, and I clearly disapproved of it,” said Eduardo Dueñas. Dueñas worked at the Schuylkill Center as the manager of school programs. He left recently after six years with the organiza tion. He got his start there volunteering for Toad Detour. “That’s a way we connect the community. Based on that I would not agree onOtherselling.”staff were surprised to learn that the tract was even owned by the Schuylkill Center and said they would have offered pro gramming ideas if given the opportunity. One staff person spoke up to ask who the board members involved were, since they had never met any board members in their time work ing at the center. The physical offices of the center leadership sit downstairs from the pro gramming spaces at the organization’s main building. Programming staff complained of an upstairs/downstairs gulf between staff who worked with the public and leadership unaware of working conditions.
The Schuylkill Center’s plans became pub lic when, on March 9, an anonymous email address, “schylkllcntrlndsale @ proton mail com,” sent an email with the subject “Schuylkill Center Land Sale” to all staff at the organization with attached internal documents detailing plans to sell the Boy Scout the first time the Schuylkill Center had tried to sell the Boy Scout Tract. In 2004 a plan to sell to a developer who pro posed to build more than 80 homes sparked a firestorm of community outrage and opposi tion. Mike Weilbacher, the Schuylkill Center’s executive director, described the reaction in an April 2021 memo (part of the leak) to the board: “The proposal … was somehow dis covered by the neighborhood, which went predictably ballistic, as it is rarely good PR when a conservation group sells land to a developer. There was even picketing at our front gate.” The Schuylkill Center dropped the plans and the executive director at the timeWeilbacherresigned. drafted the April 2021 memo to the board to formally notify them that Daniel F. Gordon, a donor to the Schuylkill Center, had approached him with an offer to buy the Boy Scout Tract. Gordon sought to build two houses, one for his daughter and another for his wife and himself, as well as a barn to house his daughter’s horses. According to the memo, Gordon had lost out on bidding for a 10-acre plot of land on Port Royal Avenue being sold by Jamie Wyper, a Roxborough open space activist and president of the Residents of Shawmont Valley Association, along with two other families who had acquired the initially for ested parcel when it came on the market. They had hoped that they could limit the ex tent of development on the plot by choosing the ultimate developer. (This plan ultimate ly failed, according to Wyper. That 10-acre plot is now the aforementioned Port Royal Reserve.)
In 2014 and 2015 the Schuylkill Center had applied to the Pennsylvania Depart ment of Conservation and Natural Re sources for $1 million in funding to place a conservation easement on the Boy Scout Tract. They teamed up with Natural Lands, an organization that preserves open space in the Philadelphia area, often using con servation easements. The state turned them down both times, since $1 million could pre serve much more land in rural areas where land is cheaper than in Philadelphia. Weilbacher consulted with the board about Gordon’s offer, and as Weilbacher has said in meetings since, the board decided to convene a task force to more thoroughly consider if and how to sell the Boy Scout Tract. That task force decided to solicit ad ditional offers to give the organization more options.Theleaked news of the possible land sale sparked opposition from much of the Schuylkill Center’s staff. Leadership held Zoom meetings on March 10 and 11 to pres ent the plans to the staff and hear their concerns. Grid obtained audio from the two meetings.Basedon the recordings, staff members spoke up to address several points, includ ing how the development of the Boy Scout Tract, however restricted by a conservation easement, would destroy wildlife habitat, for example that of the American toads whose spring migration is celebrated and protected by the Schuylkill Center’s Toad Detour program.
Several people expressed frustration with the lack of transparency about the process, which had been underway for a year, but which the staff only learned about through the email leak. Some staff at the meetings spoke up to say they were concerned that the sale violated the organi zation’s conservation mission. At the end of one of the calls, two staff members spoke up with concerns that the sale would damage the center’s reputation, which, they said, was already suffering among local birders and other naturalists. The proposed sale of the Boy Scout Tract added to a list of staff complaints, such as In actual fact the land is used.
28 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 opers cleared the trees on the site, graded the driveway, and, for the five years since then, development has mostly been paused, according to StormwaterLove.runs off the property and down Port Royal Avenue, washing soil into the road and cutting a gully into the Schuylkill Center’s grounds near its wild life clinic. “They have to bring in front-end loaders to clear the road when it rains,” Love says. She pointed out a pile of soil where the builders had laid a foundation for a model house and then torn it out. Love says clearing forest at what is now the Boy Scout Tract would only amplify the runoff problem while any planned houses are un der construction, especially if the project hit similar delays.
jamie wyper president of the Residents of Shawmont Valley Association
Tom Landsmann, the president of the Roxborough Manayunk Conservancy, which works to conserve land in those neighborhoods, wrote, “What is the max number you would considers [sic].” Later in the chat Landsmann wrote, “I’d like to hear a rough conceptual number of how low pay, that have fueled turmoil at the cen ter. According to current and former staff at the center, about 20 people (at least a third of the workforce) left between October 2021 and June 2022, with each departure adding to the workload of those remaining. At an April 28 evening Zoom discussion about forest restoration, Schuylkill Center staff essentially hijacked the meeting with questions about the sale, including about how alternatives to the sale might promote local land sovereignty, according to two attend ees who spoke anonymously with Grid. The meeting, part of an educational series called Thursday Night L!ve, ended early, and was not posted to the center’s YouTube channel.
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 29
the 2004 attempted sale of the land. After three months they stopped waiting. In early June they convened a joint, closed meeting of the two civic associations to discuss the possibility of the land sale. After that initial meeting they invited the Schuylkill Center leadership to present the plans to issue the RFP, which resulted in a June 30 Zoom meeting at which Weilbach er and Schuylkill Center board of trustees members Joanne Dahme and John Carpen ter presented the plans. Weilbacher noted that the Boy Scout Tract was donated to the center with more flexibility than the original, core property of the center. He put the proposed sale into the context of past Schuylkill Center land sales, including the sale of what is now Manataw na Farms to the City in the 1980s. In 2006 the center sold a five-and-half-acre section of the Boy Scout Tract along Eva Street to a church.TheRFP includes language from Hous ton Smith’s will that makes clear the center is free to sell it. The land was “to be retained by the nature center, in whole or in part, for its stated purposes as its Trustees see fit, keeping in mind, but not being bound by my desire, that as much open space as feasi ble be preserved in the City of Philadelphia, but without restriction on the right of the said Trustees to sell or otherwise complete ly dispose of the premises … as they shall determine to be in the best interest of the NatureBoardCenter.”members Carpenter and Dahme said that the Schuylkill Center would only consider proposals that included strong stormwater management plans. Half of the property is too steep to build on without a zoning variance, and the Schuylkill Center representatives said that they would require developers to include a conservation ease ment to prevent any future owners from seeking a variance and building on those hillsides.Members of the civic associations sub mitted their questions (along with several comments opposing the sale) through the meeting’s chat.
The March 9 all-staff email leak also reached Wyper and Rich Giordano, president of the Upper Roxborough Civic Association.
“When we got the anonymous email I reached out to some of the other civic [as sociation] people, and I had a conversation with Mike Weilbacher, who largely con firmed overall what was in the email and said they were still working on whether they were going to issue an RFP [Request for Proposals],” Giordano says. After the conversation, the civic association leaders decided to give the Schuylkill Center the benefit of the doubt and wait for more infor mation before alerting their members, many of whom had taken part in the resistance to Jennie Love, owner of Love ’n Fresh Flowers, farms on four-and-a-half acres that was successfully preserved as open space. She is skeptical that future wealthy owners of the Boy Scout Tract would abide by a conservation easement.
“What we find disappointing is they went for the easy, low-hanging fruit here. The one way that is a way that violates their mission and reputation,” Wyper says. “They’ve sold land several times before and wound up not necessarily in a better position than before they sold it,” Giordano says. “What you should do is really a de velopment project, real fundraising rather than take a huge asset you have that’s im portant in its own right and sell it.”
Weilbacher said that staff often volun teered programming ideas for the Schuylkill Center overall, but to his knowledge had never volunteered programming ideas for theSeveraltract.
The Schuylkill Center representatives said that the organization had not made de cisions about a revenue target or how many houses it would allow, though it would not consider proposals with the maximum al lowable density. They explained that they planned to use the revenue from the sale to fund capital expenses, for example improvements to the wildlife clinic and repairs to the visitor center.Several attendees questioned why the Schuylkill Center would sell the land rath er than use it for programming. Weilbach er said that the center had faced challenges using all of its core 340 acres for program ming, and that in 50 years the Boy Scout Tract had not been used.
Both Wyper and Giordano made similar points in conversations with Grid, noting that plenty of organizations raise money through capital campaigns without resort ing to selling off land.
Havens’ daughter, Kacey Plunkett, worked at the center from 2018 to May 2022 in a va riety of education positions as she attended Chestnut Hill College, graduating in 2021 with a degree in environmental science. “It was so amazing to find a job that resonated with what I wanted to do with my degree, but everything started to fall apart,” she said. “At the beginning of 2022 it was so overwhelm ing because we had lost so many teachers.”
Havens left the Schuylkill Center in the middle of March after working there for six and a half years. She questioned the need for the funds, given that the center’s endow ment sits at about $5 million, according to their most recent annual IRS 990 report.
comments asked for an in-person meeting in addition to the Zoom Q&A. Weil bacher and the civic association leaders said that there would be in-person meetings in the future to discuss the proposal, though they have yet to set a date.
In the chat, Michelle Havens, who had until March worked at the Schuylkill Cen ter as office manager and gift shop manager, asked, “When was the last time you solicit ed feedback or recommendations from the Staff of the Schuylkill Center pertaining to the property and its usage for programs, since they would be the first and best re source for such questions?”
30 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 many houses that SCEE would consider.”
Along with the low pay and the mounting workload, Plunkett cited poor leadership at the center, including from a board that had little contact with the staff of the organiza tion, as a reason for her departure, which she documented in an email sent to all staff and to the board on May 20. The nearby Port Royal Preserve is the type of development that could come to the Boy Scout Tract. The homes, not yet built, are set to start at $1.5 million.
Wyper, president of the Residents of Shawmont Valley Association, responded; “In actual fact the land is used. By wildlife.”
While this could be seen as a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) response by people privileged to own homes surrounded by open land, Giordano frames it as a defense of what in Philadelphia is an endangered landscape. One hundred years ago much of the city was still rural, particularly in the Northeast and Northwest. Today all those fields, forests and pastures have been de veloped. “Port Royal Avenue is literally a survivor of 19th-century agricultural Phil adelphia,” he says.
“Mike Weilbacher is a bald-faced liar,” says Andrew Kirkpatrick, who worked as the land stewardship manager for the center from 2016 to 2019. Like Vincenti, he told Grid that he had seen suggestions to use the tract as camping space in an old master plan, and that he had repeated to the center’s program managers the idea that the tract be used as a camping site for outside groups. “We had looked at that spot because it was out of the way, so groups could camp there and not be in the way of activity at the main site.”
Some Schuylkill Center staff support the sale. Sam Bucciarelli, the center’s land stew ardship coordinator, says, “The Schuylkill Center currently does not have the resourc es to properly care for the parcel, and I am in support of a conservation-minded sale including a conservation easement.”
Weilbacher declined to be interviewed for this piece, directing questions to Amy Krauss, the center’s director of communica tions. Grid asked why the center hasn’t set a target for the sale price or limits on the development they would approve. Krauss responded by email: “The Center’s Board of Trustees will evaluate the proposals based on multiple criteria: price offered to the Center; percentage of the Tract to be conserved; how the proposal address es environmental concerns including, but not limited to, stormwater, soil disturbance and tree removal; suitability to the neigh borhood; the developer’s track record and credibility; and any additional criteria de termined by the trustees.”
“We do tours at the reservoir. When I stand at the entrance I point at the Schuylkill Center and Manatawna Farms and down Shawmont Valley to say the amount of green is amazing to be inside the sixth largest city in the United States. It’s not little chunks. It’s almost con tinuous. This is important for the quality of life, for wildlife habitat.”
Kirkpatrick thinks the center’s leadership avoided programming on the tract to keep it open for a future sale. “They always kept that parcel separate so they could sell it off.”
SEPTEMBER 2022 GRIDPHILLY.COM 31
“I think it’s hard for people to appreciate,” says Giordano, who, along with Wyper, led efforts to preserve the Upper Roxborough Reservoir and convert it to public park space.
The Schuylkill Center declared 2022 to be its year of restoration, with a focus on habitat restoration at the center grounds, which Plunkett says clashes with the plans to sell the Boy Scout Tract. “It’s the year of restoration and they’re trying to sell a plot of land,” she says. “If I had known about the land, I would have taken preschoolers there … If we had known we would have been doing programs over there, showing people how we protect the land, how we protect nature. Selling land is not how you protect
mike weilbacher Schuylkill Center executive director in a leaked memo
“In 2002 we had this area, this neigh borhood, established as a historic district, the Upper Roxborough Historic District,” Wyper says. “It encompasses 1,500 acres of largely open space. It extends into White marsh Township. It includes Manatawna Farms. That doesn’t give us much protec tion, but it gives us an identity.”
Plunkett’s point about staff not being consulted for programming ideas at the Boy Scout Tract. “At no time was anything sent out to the employees asking for program proposals or usage proposals for that land,” Havens says. Sandi Vincenti, who was the center’s director of early childhood education from 2017 to 2020, recalled discussions about using the Boy Scout Tract for camping at leadership meetings. “At a few senior staff meetings it was an agenda item.” She says they discussed using the site for camping by children enrolled in the center’s programs.
Much of the discussion at the civic asso ciation meeting revolved around what the development of the Boy Scout Tract would mean for overall open space preservation in the neighborhood. The Schuylkill Center staff repeatedly assured the attendees that City water and sewer service would not be extended down Port Royal Avenue. Currently the houses on that hillside draw their water from wells and dispose of sewage through septic systems. These systems limit housing density, so the concern is that extended water and sewer lines would open up the rest of the neighborhood to denser development.
The Schuylkill Center released its Re quest for Proposals on July 11, with submis sions due by September 23. The Schuylkill Center is a private organization contem plating a sale that wouldn’t require a zon ing variance, which gives the public little leverage over the outcome. Nonetheless, the organization “depends on donations and grants, and their public face should be important to them,” Giordano says. “It’s a public face dependent on people who take these issues to heart in a serious way and wouldn’t look kindly on an organization that they think is betraying them.” Giordano says he hopes the dispute doesn’t escalate as it did in 2004. “[It] was awful for them. It was awful for us, too,” he says. “Right from the beginning, my goal is let’s not go that route again… I hope at some point we have an offramp. I hope it doesn’t degenerate into some kind of bitterness.”
Havensnature.”echoes
Opposition to the possible sale of the tract has manifested in a website (savethe boyscouttract.com), a Facebook group and an Instagram account (@savetheboyscout
During the June 30 civic association call the center representatives said that the or ganization is not committed to selling the Boy Scout Tract and could very well decide in the end that no offer is worth it. Giordano suspects, however, that the money will be hard to turn down once they are confronted with concrete offers. “My concern is when you put something out into the world like this, stuff comes back to you that becomes tantalizing. It has a big dollar amount at tached to it, and you are induced to do something you might not have done before you had that boulder rolling down the hill.”
It is rarely good PR when a groupconservationsells land to a developer.”
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“We need more of this space,” she says. “Why not keep it for citizens to use rather than putting it into development? There’s so much value to this land, value to wild life, value to the community. This is just lazy leadership.”
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Jennie Love farms flowers on four-and-ahalf acres of what was once part of a farm that Wyper and other neighbors successfully preserved as open space. “We were able to put 21 acres into conservation easements,” Wyper says. “It’s a remarkable little agrarian setting.”
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Neighbors have begun putting up yard signs reading “No Land Sale! Schuylkill Center Must Save Land.”
32 GRIDPHILLY.COM SEPTEMBER 2022 tractscee).
“When I heard about the possible sale of the [tract], it felt like a violation of the community’s faith in the Schuylkill Center. Environmental centers at their very core are meant to protect the environment, not aid in the sale of it to developers,” says Stephanie Hammerman, who started the social media accounts along with other advocates. “The people involved in these groups are local community members and are all huge ad vocates of the Schuylkill Center and the en vironment, but are deeply concerned about the current direction it’s going in. They use and care for the space regularly and want it to remain in its current state where wildlife and human life can continue to enjoy it.”
Love, though, is concerned that conserva tion easements might not be strong enough to protect the Boy Scout Tract once the property is sold by the Schuylkill Center, which, as a nonprofit organization, is not subject to local property taxes, to a private owner, who is. “I know the economic pres sures that will come down on the owners of that land,” she says. She thinks a wealthy owner could clear more land than is permit ted by an easement and choose to fight it out in court. Even if they lose the suit, the dam age will be done. Love’s land is also protect ed by a conservation easement, but the City initially assessed the land’s value at what it would be worth without an easement. Love says that she had to fight to have her tax es reduced to reflect the value of the land minus the easement. “The point is once the Boy Scout Tract comes out from a nonprofit entity, I don’t care who says they’re putting it under conservation easements. I can say from experience it will be a nonstop battle from there on out to safeguard it.”
Love pointed out that the Boy Scout Tract’s location, directly across Port Roy al from the core grounds of the Schuylkill Center and across Eva from the Upper Rox borough Reservoir, situates it well for pub lic use. It is easy to imagine a trail running through it, knitting it together with those other publicly-accessible green spaces and inviting neighbors in.
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Circling the economics of sustainability
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Yansong Li first became interested in the circular economy during study abroad in Amsterdam; in Penn’s Master of Environmental Studies (MES) program, he expanded his knowledge of global economics and policy and prepared for further graduate studies in this exciting field. “If we implement circularity without noticing its drawbacks or unintended consequences, we are most likely to fail,” he explains. “I want to research how to build sustainable food systems, particularly through the lens of sustainable cities in developing countries.”
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At Penn, Yansong developed leadership and community engagement skills while serving on the department’s Climate, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and practiced public education with a presentation on the circular economy (which took the prize for his division in the annual Penn Grad Talks). “If we can’t talk about science in a way people can understand, this endeavor can be an elitist and authoritarian process,” he says. “Education for kids is incredibly important, because my generation and the generation that comes after me are going to live through the climate change century. But education for adults is also very important, because they can help. We are all in this together,” he concludes.
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