I urge the City of Philadelphia to move forward with the Washington Avenue Repaving and Improvement Project, without modifying the Final Design Decision, and without additional delay.

Washington Avenue is one of the most dangerous roads in Philadelphia. Just last week, a woman in a crosswalk was struck by a vehicle turning onto the road. Reducing the number of travel lanes from five to three will improve pedestrian safety by providing buffer zones for pedestrians and reducing the distance across traffic to safely cross the road.

I fully support the Final Design Decision and urge the city to begin repaving Washington Avenue as soon as possible.

Before deciding to remake Washington Avenue as a 3-lane road, PhillyOTIS conducted 37 meetings with 26 community organizations and received 5,434 survey responses from nearby residents. 71 percent of nearby residents preferred the 3-lane option. However, the city delayed those broadly popular and desperately needed pedestrian safety so they can continue “engagement with community stakeholders and elected officials to capture additional neighbor feedback as we refine our traffic safety concepts.”

We assure you that your Final Design Decision does not need to be refined. Having already engaged with over 5,400 members of our community, you can feel confident that your Final Design Decision is consistent with the needs and desires of a wide cross section of nearby residents. Any additional feedback will undoubtedly be less representative of the nearby communities than the large number of responses you've already considered. And delaying the project to conduct even more engagement with community stakeholders and elected officials has its own cost, prolonging the amount of time that we must cross Washington Avenue in its current, dangerous condition and increasing the likelihood that yet another pedestrian will be injured or even killed.

Thank you.