City seeks feedback on 'Chinatown Stitch' project designs concepts

PHILADELPHIA - Public surveys are open for the Chinatown Stitch project in Philadelphia and now city officials are asking the community for feedback on three design concepts.

The project explores putting a cap over the Vine Street Expressway between Broad Street and 8th Street.

The Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability (OTIS) and the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) collected initial surveys in March and received 2,335 responses on the community’s vision and goals for the proposed cap.

The feedback is summarized into four goals for the project that are emphasized in the three potential design concepts.

They include having park space, a safe street design extending the Chinatown neighborhood feel, prioritizing elderly, young and people with disabilities, and public buildings and businesses that serve community needs.

"When the highway was built 30 to 40 years ago, it really had some significant damage to one of Philadelphia’s great communities," said Chris Puchalsky, Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives at OTIS. "We can’t go back in time and undo it, but we can do right by that community today. The goal would be you wouldn’t even necessarily know that there’s an interstate there. You’d just come upon it and it would be a green space. A place where you can recreate, a place to escape from some of the rigors of the city and it also reduces air pollution, it increases wellness, physical activity so there’s a ton of benefits from having green space."

There are no firm cost or timeline estimates, but similar projects have cost between $100 to $200 million and construction may start by 2028 if everything goes smoothly.

"This has been a need in Chinatown for a long time. It’s a neighborhood that disproportionately lacks outdoor public areas for people to gather," said Caroline Aung, PCDC Chinatown Stitch Project Manager. "The Vine Street expressway is one of these big examples of a big infrastructure project harming a community, displacing people, and creating harms that continue to this day. Air pollution and noise pollution. Our elderly and our children are endangered—the thousands of cars that drive on this highway every day—and it creates a huge barrier for Chinatown to grow."

After receiving this latest round of survey results, OTIS hopes to finalize a design and share it with the community by the end of the year.

The online survey is available in both English and Chinese until the end of September.