Trolley project back on line!
Well, a couple of Daily News stories, some public outrage, and a little back-room maneuvering, and it looks like things are back on track for the Girard St. trolley:
Update: The Urban Warrior gives you a sense of what SEPTA as a bad neighbor felt like, and lauds the arrival of a compromise/truce. Indeed, kudos to all, however belated.
U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, who is also chairman of the Democratic City Committee, called a closed-door meeting on Monday over the stalled Route 15 trolley - and came out with a plan to get the $84 million public-works project running.As part of the deal, the neighborhood (and Campbell) are giving up on the illegal parking spaces they had gotten used to, and SEPTA has agreed to be a better neighbor around its Callowhill depot (including regular meetings with the neighborhood). Hooray for sanity! everybody wins.
"My goal is to have the trolley operational by the end of the summer," said SEPTA Board Chairman Pat Deon, who was at the meeting.
Update: The Urban Warrior gives you a sense of what SEPTA as a bad neighbor felt like, and lauds the arrival of a compromise/truce. Indeed, kudos to all, however belated.
posted by ACM at 9:53 AM
5 Comments:
Great news! Nothing like shining a little on the subject to motivate public servants to act in the public interest.
It's hard to get a real sense of just exactly what was going on, but I tend to read between the lines that Nutter's failure to carry out his responsibilities was the main problem -- and that once he got "on track" a resolution was reached. While it seems that Campbell was less then helpful towards reaching a solution, she was also representing her constituancy.
Why are people making the assumption that this is all on Nutter? He's not the only politician representing the area...sure he has a role to play, but he doesn't run SEPTA. It would actually be more appropriate to ask the State Reps. and Senators about this - SEPTA is a state controlled agency.
It's odd that the General Manager of SEPTA - Faye Moore - hasn't been mentioned as an accountable party in all of this.
It seems to me that everybody has been implicated -- they probably didn't mention Moore at SEPTA because the problem was local relations, not a city-wide one. Why Nutter? Because he's in the spotlight these days, and folks think if he wants to be seen as a leader, then he can't duck the tricky issues close to home. Somebody has to make the parties sit down together; Brady stepped into the gap, but it should have been worked out long before this.
However, better late than never, and everybody had to give a little to get things worked out. That sounds about right.
Post a Comment
<< Home