The civic vision advances the principles of public access, connectivity and quality land development through an integrated series of networks. A Civic Vision for the Central Delaware proposes the following major shifts in the riverfront environment: • the extension of the Philadelphia street grid to the river’s edge to
encourage public riverfront access and connectivity to the river; • an improved, pedestrian-friendly boulevard; • a continuous recreational trail; • rights-of-way dedicated to transit and biking; • a public riverfront green space every 1/4 mile; • a 100-foot greenway to filter pollutants and create wildlife habitat; and • a mixed-use, transit-oriented and urban-scale riverfront that truly
extends Philadelphia’s river-ward neighborhoods to the river’s edge.
A tangle of infrastructure is both a challenge and an opportunity for the central Delaware.
A Civic Vision for the Central Delaware was the result of a year-long
The central Delaware riverfront area extends between Oregon Avenue in
planning process led by PennPraxis, the outreach arm of the School of
the south, Allegheny Avenue in the north, I-95 to the west and the Delaware
Design of the University of Pennsylvania. The creation of the vision was
River to the east. It encompasses the neighborhoods of Whitman, Pennsport,
commissioned by executive order of Mayor Street in 2006 and overseen
Queen Village, Society Hill, Old City, River’s Edge, Northern Liberties, Fishtown,
by a forty-six member advisory group comprised of state and city officials,
Kensington and Port Richmond. Key existing businesses include big-box stores
civic-group leaders and people from other riverfront agencies. The planning
and the industrial port to the south and two gated residential condominium
process involved meetings with over four thousand members of the public
towers and hotels in the center and north. Proposed businesses include two
and riverfront stakeholders. The efforts of all of these parties resulted in
casinos and twenty-two residential towers.
The Civic Vision for the central Delaware can be viewed at www.planphilly.com/vision.
a planning document meant to guide growth over the next thirty years on the central Delaware riverfront. The civic vision received the national Charter Award from the Congress for New Urbanism in March 2008.
Action Plan for the Central Delaware