You can almost hear nervous officials bleating in unison for the long-planned $50 million reconstruction to start immediately. So what if the current design transforms Philadelphia's most thrilling Center City gateway into an interstate-grade cattle chute?
Ever since the Streets Department unveiled its final renderings for the bridge in January, unhappy neighborhood and business groups have been urging the agency to return to the drawing board. The groups say they are starting to make headway with the city. Now they fear that the Minneapolis collapse will spook officials into ending the conversation.
Obviously, the South Street Bridge should be closed immediately if engineers deem it is unsafe - and so far they haven't. But even if that worst case were to occur, there are compelling reasons for the city to produce a new design, rather than proceed full speed ahead with a flawed reconstruction plan.
Closing the bridge now would probably cause months of disruption for the legions of drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians who cross every day between Center City and the University of Pennsylvania. But Philadelphia's pedestrians and bikers will be cursing their fate for decades if the current bleak design is built, with its stingy sidewalks and flimsy turret outlooks. The South Street Bridge is meant to be a gracious pedestrian span that links two dynamic neighborhoods, not just an efficient delivery system for automobiles heading for I-76.
Terry Gillen, the neighborhood's Democratic Party ward leader and a staff member for Michael Nutter's mayoral campaign, believes the city and its consultants could produce a new, improved design in under six months.
"If they had been told in January to start over by someone in authority, like the mayor, it would have been done by now," she argues.
