Why do you need a petition from your neighbors to implement traffic calming in Philadelphia?
In January, the Philadelphia Streets Department announced that they had updated the procedure for residents to request traffic calming measures in their neighborhood.
The website is here: https://www.phila.gov/services/streets-sidewalks-alleys/request-traffic-calming-for-a-residential-street/
This was good news in a lot of ways. The new process made more streets automatically eligible for traffic calming, and eliminated the “traffic study” requirement before safety features can be added. When you submit a request through 311, your block is automatically scored based on crash data, “equity data”, and foot traffic - this is supposed to be automated and based solely on the numbers, which seems like a fair way to do it. Three times a year, the city is supposed to evaluate the high-scoring blocks in person. This makes sense too. They should visually inspect to make sure there isn’t some weird physical feature that would make it difficult to modify. But then there’s an insane requirement: once your block is selected, you have to convince your neighbors;
All that business about equity and data is just for show, and you are only entitled to a safer street if your neighbors agree.
I’m not the only one who thinks this is ridiculous. Twitter user (and fellow Philly Bike Action member!!) Adrian Lowman tweeted to the Streets Department that they should eliminate the petition requirement. On February 1, 2024, the Streets Department responded that “the petition requirement has been removed.” Amazing!
But shortly thereafter, they deleted the tweet. Suspicious!
I submitted a RTKL request to find out who did this and why, and the City responded that they have no responsive records.
I was still curious about the process, so I submitted a new request for:
A copy of the scoring criteria used by the City to rank requests for traffic calming for residential streets.
A copy of the scoring sheet/rubric used by the City to rank requests for traffic calming for residential streets.
The City initially produced a little screenshot of a rubric:
This raises an interesting issue I debated many times when I represented agencies responding to RTKL requests: can you just produce a snippet of a document or email, or do you have to provide the full document even if it includes material that was not specifically requested? I have always argued for over-production. My reasoning is that RTKL requests seek documents, not an answer to a question, so an agency should always produce the full document (provided no other exemption applies).
I wrote back to the City and requested the full document, and they produced a memo from a contractor. The appendices are missing, so I have a new RTKL request pending for the appendices (plus invoices from Kittelson to see how much we as taxpayers are spending on this). But here is the memo from a contractor with their program recommendations:
According to this memo, not only do you need a petition from the rest of your block, but you’ll also need a letter of support from your city council representative. How does this support the stated goals to boost efficiency, be transparent, slow traffic, and serve vulnerable communities??
I don’t think this system is even up and running yet, because I submitted a request last week and have received nothing in response other than this automated 311 email:
