Green City Journal

Philadelphia's 5-county region has lost more than 8% of it's tree cover in the past 15 years. TreeVitalize, a public private partnership spearheaded by the PA Department of Conservation and Resources, aims to plant more than 20,000 shade trees in neighborhoods and more than 500 acres of forested riparian buffers in Bucks, Chester, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) is offering a special rebate this spring to all residents in Southeaster Pennsylvania who plant a tree as part of a program sponsored by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. (DCNR).

The people of Philadelphia must claim what should rightfully be in their control: our riverfronts. Consider the following two excerpts:

"By the laws of nature, the following are common to all mankind- the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea. No one, threrefore, is forbidden to approach the seashore." - Institutes of Justinian, Ancient Rome, mid 6th Century

"The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people." - Article I, section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, April 14, 1970

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A month ago the Septa board voted to kill the system. Well not exactly a bullet to the heart. More like the way the American military likes to take care of the "world's most dangerous terrorists:" the long, slow death by torture. Capital funds will be used to operate the system. That means what's broken doesn't get fixed; what's planned never gets built, what's worn out and faltering never gets replaced.

We have been here before. It was a time we refer to as "the bad old days," which was followed immediately by the promise to never borrow from the capital budget to operate the system and the unveiling of the truth-in-advertising campaign "We're getting there!"

 Septa did; that's the thing. Bridges were fixed. Buses were purchased, repurchased, and maintained like new; the El was replaced; regional rail cars built; Broad Street stations refurbished; the 25 year-old subway-surface cars cleaned and fixed with the tenacity of the guy across the street who scrubs the white walls on his 1981 powder blue Buick LeSabre.

Transit Advocate Marc Stier

I spoke with Council At-Large candidate and Neighborhood Networks founder Marc Stier about some of Philadelphia's transportation issues. Stier also sits on the steering committee of the PA Transit Coalition.

I don't know a lot about rapid transit issues in the city. I do know we don't have enough of it. There are no plans to expand it. From what I understand, one of the problems is that the people who sit on the board of SEPTA live in the suburbs and don't consider very much the needs in the city.
That's part of the problem. But the first problem is the funding problem. We're constantly fighting to save the system we have. We don't have the dedicated state funding that transit systems all around the country have. Look at Dallas. Most of the funds for that system come from a dedicated tax source. That means you don't have to go through appropriations every year, that there's a certain tax source that is dedicated, and it grows every year, and it's a tax source that increases with inflation.