What to Know
- A $4 million plan is underway to plan and design a cap over part of the Vine Street Expressway that would connect Philadelphia's Chinatown neighborhood.
- Dubbed "The Chinatown Stitch," the idea is to find way to reconnect the neighborhood several years down the line.
- “After more than three decades of harm and displacement caused by the Vine Street Expressway, the Reconnecting Communities grant is a beacon of hope for the Chinatown community,” John Chin, executive director for PCDC, said.
An effort is underway in Philadelphia to reconnect the Chinatown neighborhood decades after the Vine Street Expressway cut it apart.
Philadelphia has dubbed the project exploring capping a portion of Interstate 676 "The Chinatown Stitch."
"This project focuses on the area between Broad Street to 8th Street and Callowhill Street to Race Street," the City said in a website detailing the project, which is a partnership with the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) to evaluate ways to reconnect the neighborhood on both sides of I-676.
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"The initial phase of the Chinatown Stitch project will study ways to reconnect the Chinatown neighborhood across the Vine Street Expressway I-676," Philadelphia Deputy Managing Director for Transportation Mike Carroll said. "OTIS is proud to lead this important work to repair historic harms caused by the highway construction, which physically divided Chinatown and heightened traffic safety and environmental justice issues."
“After more than three decades of harm and displacement caused by the Vine Street Expressway, the Reconnecting Communities grant is a beacon of hope for the Chinatown community,” John Chin, executive director for PCDC, said.
The city has recently been busy thinking of ways to cover highways as PennDOT recently began work toward capping I-95 to build a park at Penn's Landing along the Delaware River.
A $1.8 million U.S. Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program (RCP) grant is helping to accelerate the process to connect Chinatown and Chinatown North in Center City.
“The funding from this grant will provide concrete change for Chinatown’s built environment, allowing for businesses, residents and future generations of our marginalized community to flourish," Chin said.
The total cost of the planning phase comes to about $4 million, with Philly, PennDOT, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and a number of private local donors supplying $2.2 million in matching funds.
In a news release announcing the project, the City explained the long history of a disconnected Chinatown:
"Since the 1960s, the Vine Street Expressway has been greeted with significant community opposition. Upon completion of construction in 1991, the expressway intensified the social and economic disconnect between the Chinatown and Chinatown North neighborhoods. The community engaged in numerous neighborhood plans and studies over the past twenty years."
At an online news conference Wednesday morning, organizers released a timeline that has the conceptual study ending in Fall 2023, followed by a two-year grant and design period. The plan is to ask for construction proposals by the Fall of 2025 and awarding the contract by the Spring of 2026.
The public is being asked to weigh in on the plan by filling out a survey on the concept study in English, Spanish and Chinese.
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