Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue are set to undergo major pedestrian and cyclist safety improvements near Temple’s Main Campus as a result of millions in federal funding, the university announced on March 16.
The grant, announced by United States Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation will bring $30 million to North Philadelphia with the goal of making streets safer. Work on Cecil B. Moore Avenue will span from about 11th Street to 17th Street, said Kelley Yemen, director of Complete Streets within the city’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability.
“The infrastructure law is not only making our communities safer,” Sen. Casey wrote in a statement to The Temple News. “It’s empowering us to right historical wrongs and fund long-overdue safety projects in underserved communities. I was proud to advocate for this $30 million award to reduce fatal crashes and make a busy traffic corridor safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers in Philadelphia.”
Part of the grant identified a project that will encompass Broad Street from Cecil B. Moore Avenue, Yemen said.
Improvements will include raised crosswalks and medians, new traffic lights and signage to direct vehicles and calm traffic, said James Templeton, Temple’s architect and assistant vice president for the Project Delivery Group. The changes will primarily be focused on pedestrian and bicycle safety, but will also focus on vehicular safety.
“These are ongoing issues that have been happening for years that because of this grant we can actually jump start, which is fantastic,” Templeton said.
Templeton also said that the grant will fund aesthetic improvements like the quality of the paving in the intersection and sidewalk areas.
The project will include planted medians that will make a big impact on the visual experience when driving down Broad Street through Temple’s campus, Templeton added.
The effort is an extension of the university’s landscape master plan that focuses on building a more cohesive campus environment, including more pedestrian open space, according to the Campus Operations website.
Temple is partnering with Vision Zero Philadelphia, an effort overseen by OTIS to improve traffic safety and eliminate traffic deaths on Philadelphia streets by 2030.
The Cecil B. Moore improvements will be carried out by the city and will expand on plans that have been developed during the last year and a half.
“When this grant opportunity came along, it was a good partnership, but we knew Temple had, you know, kind of safety concerns,” Yemen said. “We shared those concerns and we had plans for both our organizations that were ready to go.”
Other funding in the grant will be allocated toward planning, which the city will use to identify future projects and advance Philadelphia Vision Zero, Yemen said. Some of the grants will also be designated for design work for multiple corridors.
All of the projects in the grant cover areas in Vision Zero’s High Injury Network, which identifies the 12 percent of Philadelphia streets where 80 percent of traffic deaths and serious injuries occur, according to the program’s website. Both Cecil B. Moore and North Broad Street are included in the network.
The university announced that the project is expected to begin in June 2024 and be completed in March 2026, however, both Templeton and Yemen believe that timeline is tentative.
The project is a five-year program that includes both design and construction phases in the funding, Yemen said.
“So it’s a really large, complicated grant, and for any major infrastructure project, we like to estimate three to five years for project delivery in general between design and construction and the bidding process,” Yemen said.
Temple has made recent changes to its traffic control measures, including the addition of a speed bump on Beasley’s Walk near Broad Street after a pedestrian was killed in a vehicle crash there on Nov. 17.
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