The trouble with parking is that the more you build, the less you need An recent exchange with Jenkintown Borough Councilor Rick Bunker brings me back around to the subject of parking. Unlike probably everyone in Borough Hall, We’ve studied this issue for at least two decades, especially during our unfortunate experience of living in a Massachusetts city that had, by far, the largest downtown parking garage per capita in the […]
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Paying for steak, getting McNuggets
According to George Locke, Jenkintown residents pay double what it would cost the borough to repair our sidewalks and curbs on a wholesale basis. Despite the hardship to our family, we have applied for our permit to repair our sidewalk. The borough marked off four blocks, but we will do six in order to have a more uniform look to our walkway. That leaves three blocks and our driveway apron for the […]
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Pennsylvania and the Big Lie of Home-Ownership
The Pennsylvania legislature has yet to pass a budget for this fiscal year. With a Democratic governor and a GOP-dominated legislature, we have a form of gridlock in Harrisburg that mirrors the disfunction in Washington. For those who don’t know much about the Keystone State, James Carville famously described it this way: Philly in the east, Pittsburgh in the West, and Alabama in the middle. Electorally, Pennsylvania looks like a sea of red with two small […]
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10000 Friends of Pennsylvania weighs in
The preservation group 10000 Friends of Pennsylvania was one of the few walkability advocates that responded to our requests for help in this matter. Dan Wofford contacted to discuss the situation, but unfortunately because of Pennsylvania’s budget crisis, he and his organization found themselves too distracted to get involved. We lament this crisis as well, but we believe that this is not an issue that concerns Harrisburg. Pennsylvania statue allows […]
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Minneapolis suburb takes action to be more like Jenkintown
We already have (and promote) a walkable community. However, the traffic volumes on Old York Road stand to erode our downtown’s last vestiges of charm. Because no one wants to walk on Old York, no business that relies upon foot traffic will establish themselves there. It will all become about setbacks and allowances for parking. At a late November city council meeting, local officials voted 4-1 to impose a six-month […]
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Jenkintown 2035: Wishing and hoping and planning
The Jenkintown 2035 Visioning Workshop turned out an impressive attendance last Thursday night, which included several Borough Council members, Mayor Ed Foley, and Jenkintown Borough Manager George Locke. The overall group seemed to represent a cross-section of Jenkintown society that didn’t have to commute long distances to and from work. For anyone who’s never attended these exercises, think of it as a big brainstorming session. Organizers distribute the attendees into […]
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Jenkintown Congestion = Jenkintown Revival
For automobile flooding (congestion), the only way to deal with it and still have a successful economy is to address it at the source. We need to absorb those trips locally before they become a flood. Instead of building lanes, we need to be building corner stores. We need local economic ecosystems that create jobs, opportunity and destinations for people as an alternative to those they can only get to […]
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Old York Road in Jenkintown 2035
On October 29, Montgomery County will hold the Jenkintown 2035 Workshop that calls for us “to join the conversation with fellow residents, businesses, and lovers of Jenkintown to help shape the future of the Borough.” They call this “visioning”. Officials stage these workshops because they apply a veneer of public input on the planning process. Historically they arose as a response to the bad old days of Robert Moses and the urban destruction wrought by our Interstate Highway […]
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Statement before tonight’s Jenkintown Borough Council
As the Lorax does for the trees, I come to speak for the sidewalks. Understand that I have spent the last few months giving myself a crash course on civics as it applies to this borough and state. So I have asked a lot of questions. There are many things about Pennsylvania that distinguishes it — for better and for worse — but with regards to pedestrian infrastructure, I, like […]
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The Multi-Modal Fund and Jenkintown
As part of Pennsylvania’s major gas tax hikes instituted a few years ago, a portion of the money collected goes into PennDOT’s Multi-Modal Fund. According to their website: The Multimodal Transportation Fund provides grants to encourage economic development and ensure that a safe and reliable system of transportation is available to the residents of the commonwealth. […] Funds may be used for the development, rehabilitation and enhancement of transportation assets to […]
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A $25 plan for Jenkintown Sidewalks
Update: Since posting this article, I discovered that I miscalculated the total sidewalk square footage. While current ADA regulations require a minimum width of three feet, the walkway in front of our house is actually 46 inches wide, which I’ve rounded up to four feet. The new numbers reflect that correction, including the headline, which tags on an extra five dollars. I apologize for the errors, but this is still […]
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The Jenkintown Parking Business
To give an idea of how Jenkintown prioritizes its pedestrian infrastructure, we should look at where it does choose to spend our money. This blog has previously cited several times the 2009 parking lot project, and how it has impacted its budget. The budget supplied to me by Borough Manager George Locke shines some light on what can best be described as Jenkintown Parking, Inc. If run as an actual business, how […]
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