The worst kept secret in urban planning for the past few days has been the plan to fund $17 million worth of improvements to the Ben Franklin Parkway through a combination of state, city and philanthropic money.
Well, today the official announcement was finally made. Here's the Nutter Administration press release about the Parkway and an additional $2 million for a new park at 12th and Catharine.
Coverage of this announcement has been pretty extensive starting with the Inquirer yesterday and continuing with KYW and the Metro today. (Edited to add How could I forget the Daily News coverage?) The most complete coverage comes from PlanPhilly - not surprising considering the obvious planning and urban design elements of the story.
The $17M for the Parkway will probably be pretty universally praised because of its iconic status and the use it gets from folks who live throughout the region I wonder, however, if the $2M for the Hawthorne park could be a little more contentious - at least among blog and story commenters. Will there be a PIMBY (Please! In my backyard!) among folks in other neighborhoods who also want new parks and green space?
Hopefully this represents the city's commitment to revitalizing the parks and green spaces in neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia.
In a related bit of information, the pedestrian improvements and amenities coming to the Parkway should go a long way in boosting Philly's ranking with Walk Score. Our fair city boasts the 5th best walkability score overall. You can also see the rankings of each neighborhood. I'm happy to say I live in the 4th highest ranking neighborhood in the city but I'm going to call it the 3rd since "Riverfront" seems to include I-95, the Ben Franklin Bridge and Penn's Landing.