subscribe to this page
Darnell Deans Sr. spends $21 every other week to cash his paycheck because he does not have a bank account.
The 52-year-old North Philadelphia resident says he thinks banks are a hassle. "When you open up an account, you have to have a certain kind of money to put in there. There's always so many kinds of stipulations," Deans said.
Even so, spending $546 a year to access his paycheck pains him. "I could have used that money," he said, referring to the thousands he has spent over the years.
Deans is among the estimated 81,000 Philadelphians with no bank accounts, known in the financial industry as "unbanked." All Philadelphians spent $12.6 million at check-cashing services on $503 million worth of checks, the Brookings Institution said.
To combat that drain on neighborhood wealth, federal and city officials yesterday launched Bank on Philadelphia, a program modeled on an effort in San Francisco to get low- and moderate-income residents into the mainstream banking system.
Having a bank account not only saves money, but it also acts as a "shield against the financial predators that are out there in the market," said Laurie Magid, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
...
Organizers estimated then that 50,000 households in San Francisco were unbanked, spokeswoman Leigh Phillips said. As of June, 18,558 accounts were open under the program. "We think it's pretty significant," she said.
Valerie Klein, director of program quality at the nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Service of the Delaware Valley, said her research found that some people without bank accounts were efficient at working mainstream and alternative financial systems. They cashed their paycheck at the issuing bank and took the money to a check casher to pay bills with money orders.
Others preferred the convenience of check cashers, where they can cash their check, get a money order and buy a stamp. "They could do everything at one place and do it after work when the bank wasn't open," Klein said.
There is no clear link between the lack of bank branches in an area and residents' use of check cashers. Of course, no one is limited to their neighborhood for those services.
Bank and credit-union branches outnumber check cashers in Philadelphia 2-1.
Based on a breakdown by zip code, the city's Kingsessing neighborhood has the largest number of unbanked residents, 13,652, according to the U.S. Treasury. There are no bank branches there, but also only one check casher.
The city has told the transit agency that it might reclaim part of the subway system unless it is granted "certain rights."
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Philadelphia is trying to get more clout with SEPTA by threatening to take its subways and go home.
The city owns the Broad Street subway and half of the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated line, both of which it leased to SEPTA in 1968 when the transportation agency was created.
The lease was written to expire on Dec. 31, 2005, or when SEPTA made the last of its required rent payments, whichever came later. In 2005, unable to agree on whether the lease was about to expire, the city and SEPTA extended the lease until the end of 2007.
Transit crisis awaits a mayor
SEPTA, parking fees and a regional outlook are crucial issues facing the primary contenders.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
One gauge of a city's health is its mobility.
A city that thrives is one where congestion doesn't become gridlock, where commuters, shoppers and beer trucks can coexist. Bustle is good, immobility is bad.
For Philadelphia's next mayor, the big transportation challenges will be to improve mass transit and deal with chronic traffic and parking problems. And the mayor will have to persuade skeptical suburbanites to help because the city's transportation network is the hub of a vast regional web.
"Where does transportation land on your priority list? It has to rate very highly," said Steven Wray, executive director of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, citing transportation's importance to the region's economy.
Center City "can't continue to boom without a transportation policy," said Vukan Vuchic, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania.
Bush official promotes Rendell's push to lease Pa. Turnpike
By Marc Levy
Associated Press
HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell enlisted the Bush administration yesterday in his push to get wary legislators to agree to privatize the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Rendell, a Democrat, appeared with U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters to extol the benefits of a proposal to lease the turnpike, an arrangement Rendell hopes will provide nearly $1 billion a year for the state's highway network.
"This partnership," Peters said at a news conference in the state Capitol's rotunda, "could generate billions of dollars that could be used to repair deteriorating roads and bridges, and free up money for construction and keep the state moving both now and into the future."
The agency vowed to appeal the ruling in a suit brought by Philadelphia
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
The transfers live.
A Common Pleas Court judge ruled yesterday that SEPTA must not eliminate the paper transfers that permit bus and subway riders to change vehicles for 60 cents.
The transit agency said it would appeal Judge Gary F. DiVito Jr.'s decision.
SEPTA had wanted passengers to pay full fares ($2 with cash or $1.30 with tokens) whenever changing from one bus to another. The city sued, saying that poor and minority passengers would be especially hard-hit by the elimination of the transfers.
In ordering the board to reinstate the transfers, DiVito called the SEPTA decision "capricious and . . . a manifest and flagrant abuse of discretion."
"What the evidence demonstrates," DiVito wrote, "is that SEPTA's board (1) voted to eliminate paper transfers (2) to mollify the legislature in hopes of ensuring funding (3) without any study of the impact on those who would be most adversely affected (4) without any semblance of a 'modernization plan' ready (5) with no agreement with the school board in place when (6) they could have designed a plan with an equitable impact on all of its riders."
City concourse gets a breath of fresh air
Warren of tunnels is now scrubbed daily.
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer
As a sensory experience, few things can match Philadelphia's Sherwood Forest in August.
For the uninitiated, Sherwood Forest is what police and public works crews call part of the concourse below 15th Street linking Suburban Station with tunnels to City Hall, the Municipal Services Building, and the Broad Street Subway.
It's a copse of concrete columns inhabited not by Robin Hood's Merry Men but by a band of homeless people seeking shelter from the elements. And in August, when Philly's temperature and humidity soar, the pungent odor of urine-soaked concrete is unforgettable.
But help is here.
The Center City District, the privately funded organization created to improve cleanliness, safety and the quality of life downtown, has begun tackling the quality of life below ground along 31/2 miles of corridors connecting the subways, Market East Station and the Gallery, Suburban Station, and much of South Broad Street's Avenue of the Arts.
For the first time, at least in anyone's memory, crews are cleaning the concourses 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Center City Underground
By Jeremy Rogoff
Inquirer Staff Writer
Maria Moyer has lived with the pounding din of the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Northeast Extension for seven years.
Her two-story Colonial on Boone Way is so close to traffic that the Towamencin Township resident has seen the grisly results of fatal crashes.
With the Turnpike Commission scheduled to add a third lane in each direction between the Mid-County and Lansdale interchanges, Moyer lives in dread.
The $250 million to $300 million expansion will upgrade the most heavily traveled four-lane stretch of turnpike in Pennsylvania. Turnpike officials have warned Moyer that she could lose almost her entire backyard - up to 25 feet - in the expansion, set to begin in earnest in 2011.
Politicians who helped it get a dedicated financial base and its riders want to see improved services.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Memo to SEPTA: Be careful what you ask for.
The state last week gave the Philadelphia region's long-suffering transit authority what it had always needed: money. Now, riders and politicians expect something in return: better service.
After years of blaming budget crises for its dingy subway stations, antiquated fare system, crowded trains, balky buses, and indifferent customer service, SEPTA has funding for this year and a dedicated, inflation-sensitive source of money for years to come.
Gov. Rendell on Wednesday signed a landmark transportation law, establishing new funding streams for mass-transit agencies. It provides about $156 million more in operating funds and $58 million more in capital funds for SEPTA this fiscal year, and eliminates the need for threatened service cuts or additional fare increases this year.
When he signed the bill, Rendell said he hoped SEPTA, and the state's other transit agencies, would use the money not to just stave off cuts but to "enhance some services."
He has lots of company.
Bus, subway and trolley fares won't rise, but passes will cost more. Transfers will be eliminated.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
SEPTA bus, subway and rail fares will increase by an average of 11 percent on July 9, following a 13-2 vote yesterday on the agency's new operating budget.
The SEPTA board also approved a "doomsday" plan to take effect Sept. 2, with 24 percent fare hikes and 20 percent service cuts, if the state legislature does not increase annual state funding by nearly $100 million.
For subway, bus and trolley riders, cash fares will remain at $2 and tokens at $1.30 under the new fare plan. But transfers will be eliminated on Aug. 1, meaning transit riders wanting to transfer will have to buy an additional token or use a daily, weekly or monthly pass.
Weekly passes for transit riders will increase from $18.75 to $20.75, and monthly passes from $70 to $78. Regional Rail riders will see costs rise as well; the price of a Zone 3 monthly pass will increase from $126.50 to $142.50.
By DAN GERINGER
Cash-strapped SEPTA's board of directors is expected to approve two drastically different survival plans tomorrow: one a modest 11 percent fare increase for existing service, the other a "doomsday" plan - raising fares 24 percent while cutting service 20 percent, which could devastate low-income workers, fixed-income seniors, the physically disabled and students.
If the state Legislature comes up with $100 million this summer to fill the chronically underfunded transit agency's budget hole, then the "doomsday" plan will be ditched, and only the 11 percent fare hike will go through.
But if the Legislature fails, riders will be forced to foot the bill by enduring longer waits for fewer buses and trains, and by paying much more for service:
SEPTA's base cash fare would rise from $2 to $2.50, tokens from $1.30 to $1.80, a TransPass from $18.75 to $25 weekly and from $70 to $95 monthly, and one-way Regional Rail fares would rise by as much as $1 during peak times and $2.50 off-peak.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Imagine the new slogan on license plates: "Pennsylvania, Land of Tolls."
The state legislature is increasingly enchanted by the notion of converting free interstates into toll roads as a way to raise money for highway maintenance and mass transit operations.
When the state House reconvenes Monday to tackle transportation funding, there are likely to be new calls for new toll roads. I-80 across northern Pennsylvania. I-81 in eastern Pennsylvania. I-79 in western Pennsylvania. Even Philadelphia's two main interstates, the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) and I-95.
But there are serious federal barriers to widespread tolling on existing interstates that could burst the bubble in Harrisburg.
The state leaves it little leeway for a local, dedicated source of revenue.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
When Pennsylvania legislators complain that SEPTA already gets more state funding and less local funding than most transit agencies in the United States, they're right.
But whose fault is that?
In Pennsylvania, the state prevents regional transit agencies and local governments from raising money in many of the ways used by their counterparts elsewhere.
Colorado and Georgia provide none of the money to operate Denver's and Atlanta's mass transit. Instead, they authorize local sales taxes, approved by local voters. New York, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are among the states where local property taxes are earmarked for mass transit. Los Angeles County uses a 1 percent sales tax, approved by county voters.
Thirty-three states have authorized local or regional sales taxes specifically for transportation.
Not Pennsylvania.
Study suggests shift of gears for Phila. commuters
Indications of a surprising gain for mass transit.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
For the first time in nearly half a century, Center City vehicle traffic dropped while mass-transit ridership was up, according to new data from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.
After decades of increasing dependence on the automobile, the question is whether this a blip or the beginning of a transforming trend.
The numbers were gathered in 2005, when gas prices rose sharply after Hurricane Katrina. Experts say that may have been a big factor.
The number of vehicles crossing Center City's boundaries was about 1.015 million on a typical weekday in 2005, down slightly from 1.020 million in 2000, according to the commission's preliminary, unpublished data. In 1995, the number of vehicles was 990,000. Meanwhile, the number of mass transit riders entering or leaving Center City was 486,326 a weekday in 2005, up from 442,023 in 2000 and 484,151 in 1995.
The slight shift interrupted a 45-year trend. In 1960, when the commission began keeping track, 53 percent of all Center City trips were by mass transit; by 2000 the percentage was down to 26.5 percent. In 2005, the percentage rose to about 28.5 percent.
"It's sink-or-swim time," the transportation secretary told legislators. The agency faces a $130 million deficit.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
HARRISBURG - As SEPTA heads toward another financial crisis, the Rendell administration said yesterday that it would not provide the stopgap financial aid used in recent years.
The administration won't divert federal highway funding to SEPTA or other transit agencies, Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler told the House Appropriations Committee.
"It's sink-or-swim time," Biehler said. He said the use of federal highway funding "was putting a patch" on the problem. "Now it's time to do something about it."
Posted on Fri, Feb. 16, 2007
SEPTA says fares will rise, service could drop
Gloomy transit forecasts are a rite of spring, but the agency's chief said this one's for real. Said a board member: Don't panic.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
SEPTA must increase fares by at least 11 percent and perhaps as much as 31 percent, the agency's general manager said yesterday, and she warned of service cuts and employee layoffs unless more money comes from the state.
If the state increases its subsidy of SEPTA by $100 million, the proposed fare increase, effective July 1, will be 11 percent, general manager Faye Moore said.
Without an increase in state aid from the current $300 million, she said, 1,000 of SEPTA's 9,200 jobs would be eliminated; bus, subway, and rail service would be cut by 20 percent on weekdays; and fares would be hiked by 31 percent.
Posted on Tue, Feb. 13, 2007
Fattah calls for studying Center City drive-in fee
By Michael Currie Schaffer
Inquirer Staff Writer
Mayoral candidate Chaka Fattah yesterday proposed examining a "congestion charge" that would require drivers to pay to bring their cars into traffic-clogged parts of central Philadelphia at peak hours.
Fattah offered few specifics about what his plan would cost or just how it would be implemented. He said he hoped only to "study" the idea.
"We cannot have a city in which everyone expects to be able to drive their car everywhere they want to go," Fattah said.
Editorials & Commentary >
Wednesday, Feb 07, 2007
Spot zoning fails to accommodate the greater good
By Harris Steinberg
... Spot zoning yields mega-projects alongside three-story historic structures. It allows soulless parking structures to sit along once-vibrant retail corridors. And it enables gated communities to straddle the river's edge.
N.J. plan for affordable housing is invalid
An appeals court ruled that the plan is unfair and based on flawed data.
By Troy Graham
Inquirer Staff Writer
A New Jersey appeals court threw out the state's plan for providing affordable housing to the poor yesterday, calling elements of the blueprint discriminatory and based on flawed data.
The court gave the Council on Affordable Housing, the agency that sets the state's rules, just six months to devise a new plan.
While housing advocates applauded the court's ruling, the decision means even more delays in the long-standing fight over the obligation that towns have to provide homes for low-income families.
The appellate court threw out a plan that was devised in 2004, five years after the previous plan expired.
Changing Skyline: Zoning board thumbs its nose at laws
By Inga Saffron
Inquirer Architecture Critic
In the marbled corridors of Philadelphia's government, he is often invoked by nickname, sotto voce, with a touch of grievance: Lord Auspitz. In the sunny hearing room, however, it's always Mr. Chairman.
The gentleman in question is David Auspitz, the powerful head of the city Zoning Board of Adjustment. When the voluble Auspitz likes a project, he's not shy about letting his colleagues know. Just recently, he gushed about the glassy 23-story Americana, a condo building proposed for Old City by Yaron Properties. Despite one member's warnings about allowing a high-rise in a historic neighborhood, the board gave the 268-foot tower a green light.
There's just one, not-so-little hitch: The legal height limit in Old City is 65 feet. It's been that way since 2003, when City Council passed, and Mayor Street signed, a law to control the incursion of skyscrapers into a neighborhood that includes Christ Church, Betsy Ross' house, and a rich collection of cast-iron buildings.
Call#: Van Pelt Library AY286.P5 I578
The Philadelphia Inquirer published a Philadelphia Regional Almanac from 1994-1995.
| Posted on Thu, Oct. 26, 2006 |  | |
| Involving public in waterfront plan Harris M. Steinberg is executive director of Penn Praxis, School of Design, at the University of Pennsylvania | ||
Posted on Thu, Oct. 12, 2006
Architect named as new Phila. planning chief
...
"As we move forward with plans to redevelop and revitalize our riverfronts along the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, we need the expertise and guidance of the Planning Commission," Street said in lauding Woodcock and her decades of experience in Seattle, Boston and Portland.
Kenney, DiCicco: Zoning, planning need new look
The councilmen say codes and systems are out of date. They want to set qualifications for appointees.
By Kera Ritter
Inquirer Staff Writer
City Councilmen Jim Kenney and Frank DiCicco plan to introduce legislation today that would revamp the city's zoning and planning systems, which they say are too outdated to be effective.
The legislation would set qualifications for mayoral appointees on the City Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Adjustment and give the Planning Commission more time to review projects. The councilmen also want to have a public hearing on fees paid by developers to help the community.
Posted on Mon, Sep. 18, 2006
Amtrak fares up; ridership adapts
With monthly commuter pass increases as high as 59 percent, some commuters have sought alternatives.
By Larry King
Inquirer Staff Writer
To Amtrak officials, squeezing out holders of discounted monthly passes to open more seats for full-fare occasional riders is smart business - especially when it is under pressure to cut its deficits and lacks the cash to add more trains.
Mayor-Council unity fought blight in past; it can again
By John Kromer
Near rail stops, transit villages begin to sprout
Collingswood, Haddonfield, and other PATCO towns are looking to capitalize.
By Edward Colimore
Atlantic City-N.Y. train to get a 3-year tryout
A group of casinos will put in $15 million for the express service to draw more gamblers.
By Janet Frankston
Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. - The NJ Transit board yesterday approved a three-year trial of direct train service between Atlantic City and New York's Penn Station.
...
Penn's epic plans for riverfront
The university's 20-year, $1.94 billion project will bring open space, office buildings and residences to land purchased from the Postal Service.
By Patrick Kerkstra
Inquirer Staff Writer
Critics said the compromise proposal would not go far enough to curtail abuse. Builders and municipalities lauded the bill, which a sponsor expects will pass.
By Elisa Ung
Inquirer Trenton Bureau
TRENTON - After a four-month review of how the most densely populated state allows the seizure of land for private redevelopment, key Democratic lawmakers are working on legislation that would tighten the criteria for exercising eminent domain and require more public notification. Builders and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities cheered the proposal, while property owners, Republicans, and the state's public advocate said it did not go far enough to curb eminent-domain abuse. "The real question is: What will this do to stop the abuse taking place now? And the answer is: Nothing," said Bill Potter, a Princeton lawyer who heads the Coalition Against Eminent Domain Abuse. ...
Geno's hit with bias complaints
The Commission on Human Relations said it would insist on removal of a "Speak English" sign at the cheesesteak shop.
By Mitch Lipka
Inquirer Staff Writer
One of South Philadelphia's biggest names in cheesesteaks is in a bit of a legal pickle for a lunch-line political statement against immigrants who don't speak English. The city's Commission on Human Relations yesterday filed a discrimination complaint against Geno's Steaks over signs that read: "This is AMERICA ... WHEN ORDERING SPEAK ENGLISH." Owner Joey Vento has become a mini-celebrity over the issue and has steadfastly refused to pull down the signs despite the growing legal brouhaha. His son, Geno, said his father would not comment on the matter to The Inquirer. ....
Posted on Fri, May. 26, 2006
Camden promises to retool Cramer Hill plan
The redevelopment revision would displace "far fewer" people, city officials said.
By Dwight Ott and Elisa Ung
Inquirer Staff Writers
Dropping their legal fight for the $1.2 billion Cramer Hill redevelopment plan, Camden officials said yesterday that they would retool the project to require displacement of "far fewer" homeowners.
The officials said during a briefing at Mayor Gwendolyn Faison's office that the blight study and redevelopment plan for the neighborhood would be revised and reintroduced to the planning board and City Council.
In April, a state Superior Court judge dismissed the blight study, which was key to the completion of the redevelopment plan. Known as the Cherokee Plan, after its developer, the proposal would have dislocated about 1,100 families, including 400 homeowners.
....