Transportation and Community Development Initiative (TCDI)
North Broad Street
Transportation and Access Study
Request for Proposals
Funding for these services comes from a Transportation and Community Development Initiative (TCDI) grant from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) www.dvrpc.org/planning/tcdi.htm.)
September 26, 2005
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Overview of the Request for Services 3
1.2 Source of Funding 3
1.3 Project Background 3
2. SCOPE OF SERVICES
2.1 Project Area 5
2.2 Project Description 6
2.3 Public- and Private-Sector Involvement 10
2.4 Role of PCPC Staff 11
2.5 Implementation Approach 12
2.6 Other Requirements 12
3. CONSULTANT SELECTION
3.1 Qualifications 14
3.2 Pre-Proposal Meeting 14
3.3 Submission Requirements 14
3.4 M/W/Ds-BE Participation 16
3.5 Delivery Details 16
3.7 Evaluation of Proposals 16
3.7 Administrative Requirements 17
ATTACHMENTS
A Background and Relevant Studies 19
B Minority Business Enterprise Council 22
C Contract Pricing Proposal Form 30
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 OVERVIEW OF THE REQUEST FOR SERVICES
The Philadelphia City Planning Commission (PCPC) is soliciting proposals from consultants to prepare the North Broad Street Transportation and Access Study. This study will provide a follow up to PCPC’s recent plan, Extending the Vision for North Broad Street. The study will document and assess the corridor’s transportation conditions and needs, and develop recommendations to address issues of transit facilities and movement, traffic congestion, pedestrian and bicycle improvements, and the potential for traffic calming. The study area is generally defined as the corridor bounded by 12th and 16th Streets, from City Hall to Erie Avenue.
PCPC staff, on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, will oversee the work of the project consultant and will manage the overall organization of the project. PCPC staff will also establish a framework for coordination between City agencies and community stakeholders by establishing a project Advisory Committee.
The project consultant’s work is expected to commence no later than mid-2006 and must be completed no later than June 30, 2007.
1.2 SOURCE OF FUNDING
The source of funding for the requested services is a Transportation and Community Development Initiatives (TCDI) grant awarded by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC). The TCDI requirement for an additional, local match of 20 percent will be met through in-kind services (staff and materials) provided by PCPC.
1.3 PROJECT BACKGROUND
Philadelphia, a city of approximately 1.5 million, is located in the urban center of a sprawling metropolitan area that contains nearly six million people. This region stretches from Trenton, New Jersey, to Wilmington, Delaware, and from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Coatesville in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Within the metropolitan area, factors such as the quality of public schools, taxes, and crime have placed Philadelphia at a disadvantage as individuals, households, and employers make location decisions. Consequently, the City of Philadelphia and its redevelopment partners recognize the importance of improving the physical “product,” including streetscapes, building stock, services, and amenities, that the City offers to retain and attract existing and new residents and businesses.
A significant “product” improvement, currently underway, is the City’s $295 million Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI) bond. This funding represents an unprecedented local commitment to remove blighted property and improve the physical and market environment for new investment in the City. Each city agency has a role in this initiative. At PCPC, planning for NTI is underway in approximately three-dozen neighborhoods and corridors, North Broad Street being one of the corridors.
Planning practice at PCPC increasingly focuses on two types of areas. The first focus is neighborhoods. Neighborhood planning has traditionally been the mandate of the Community Planning Division. Secondly, the focus is on corridors. Major highways, commercial corridors, and transportation corridors are often integral with neighborhoods. The corridors are used as gateways by visitors, workers, shoppers, and residents for arrival and departure from a given area. Because they are so visible and heavily used, the corridors create commonly held perceptions of larger communities. This is especially true for North Broad Street.
2. SCOPE OF SERVICES
2.1 PROJECT AREA
The North Broad Street Transportation and Access Study concerns an approximately four-mile-long corridor within the City of Philadelphia. It is bounded by Erie Avenue on the north, 12th Street on the east, South Penn Square on the south, and 16th Street on the west (shaded area on map at right).
This corridor connects the Delaware Valley region’s metropolitan center (Philadelphia’s Center City) with several neighborhoods in North Philadelphia—including two revitalizing centers along Broad Street at Cecil B. Moore and Erie Avenues—and beyond. (“Metropolitan Center” and “Revitalizing Center” are definitions used in DVRPC’s Year 2030 Land Use Plan.) Broad Street is a transit corridor—SEPTA’s Broad Street Subway as well as one surface bus route follow its alignment, and there are several intersecting transit routes along its length. The northern terminus of the corridor at Erie Avenue is a major transfer point to other SEPTA routes. The entire corridor is also a developing arts, culture, and institutional destination with several existing anchors (e.g., Temple University and Hospital, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) as well as emerging ones (e.g., Freedom Theater, Uptown Theater).
Adjacent to the North Broad Street corridor are several residential neighborhoods, some undergoing substantial revitalization with both market-rate and affordable housing development. These neighborhoods include the Loft District and Spring Garden areas just north of Center City, as well as Cecil B. Moore, Poplar, Yorktown, Temple University, and Tioga in North Philadelphia. Many of the residents of these areas patronize and make regular use of facilities along North Broad Street including commercial establishments, religious and educational institutions, social-service providers, and transit.
Some of the key built resources or “anchors” along the corridor that will participate in and benefit from its revitalization are:
· Philadelphia City Hall and municipal complex/campus
· Pennsylvania Convention Center
· Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
· Hahnemann University and Hospital
· Community College of Philadelphia
· Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc.
· New headquarters of the Philadelphia School District
· Commonwealth of Pennsylvania offices
· Three high schools (two public and one parochial)
· Temple University
· Freedom Theater
· North Philadelphia Amtrak Station
· Temple University Hospital
Importantly, North Broad Street is one of three corridors included in the City of Philadelphia’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI). NTI is a five-year strategy to preserve and rebuild Philadelphia’s neighborhoods as thriving communities with clean and secure streets, vibrant retail, recreational and cultural outlets, and quality housing. The NTI strategy is built around six “framework goals:” (1) Neighborhood Planning; (2) Blight Elimination; (3) Blight Prevention; (4) Land Assembly; (5) Neighborhood Investments; and (6) Leveraging Resources. In addition to the three corridors, there are 31 distinct neighborhoods currently in various stages of focused neighborhood-planning activity. This study will be an integral part of NTI’s strategy for the North Broad Street corridor.
2.2 PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Problem Statement and Project Purpose
North Broad Street, from Philadelphia’s City Hall to the Amtrak North Philadelphia railroad station is considered part of the Avenue of the Arts, the region’s premier cultural corridor. Within the past few years, public and institutional organizations have undertaken a considerable amount of planning, investment, and civic engagement focused on revitalizing the corridor.
An integral part of the coordinated effort to revitalize this corridor is planning for improved transportation and access to and within it. As a major north-south arterial in the City—and, in fact, Broad Street is the longest straight urban street in the US—the northern portion of Broad Street serves a variety of transportation purposes: it is the route of one of Philadelphia’s two rapid-transit rail lines; it is a principal route to and from Center City and other employment centers for commuters using transit and automobiles; it is the address of major institutions and other destinations and activities that frequently attract large numbers of patrons; and segments of it are experiencing increasing pedestrian activity.
Given the multi-functionality of the North Broad Street corridor, there are several transportation-related problems affecting the different populations who live and work along it, and travelers who pass through it, which this study should address. These problems can loosely be categorized as follows:
· Automobile use and traffic congestion
Commuter trips; event-driven traffic; local and regional trips; signalization; loading/unloading; inability to make left turns at major cross streets; service traffic.
· Transit facilities, operations, and accessibility
Links/transfers between regional rail, subway, and surface; bus lane/pull-offs; stop locations; signage and information.
· Bicycle use
Centers of activity (student populations at Temple University, Hahnemann/Drexel, Community College of Philadelphia, PAFA); designated lanes; bicycle parking.
· Pedestrian safety
Crossings at City Hall/municipal complex, other “campus” areas, and subway station locations; signalization; median; conflicts with desire for left turns; ADA.
· Parking
Off-street; access and curb cuts; on-street; enforcement; shared; employee; retail and arts-venue patron; large event; nearby residents.
· Wayfinding/Signage
For attractions; other districts; parking; transit.
Above all, the purpose of the project is to add value to the current planning for the corridor, by recommending short- and long-term strategies and actions for improved transportation and access.
Recent Efforts to Address the Problem
There are already several efforts underway to address associated problems of North Broad Street, which touch on transportation and access issues, but none to the comprehensive extent that this study will, for instance:
· The City Planning Commission recently completed a plan for the northern section of the Avenue of the Arts, Extending the Vision for North Broad Street.
· Avenue of the Arts, Inc., the organization established more than ten years ago to manage and promote the region’s premier cultural corridor, conducted a series of outreach meetings concerning promoting and coordinating organizational efforts along North Broad Street.
· Additionally, public-sector efforts to improve North Broad Street include SEPTA subway station upgrades (recently completed or programmed) and the city’s Streets Department improvements to the streetscape, lighting, signals, etc., currently underway. The Mayor’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative includes North Broad Street as one of its 34 planning areas of focus, thereby addressing citywide efforts of rebuilding thriving communities.
· Private and institutional organizations have also been planning improvements and expanding facilities along North Broad Street including Temple University, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and Pennsylvania Convention Center, as examples.
Project Approach and Scope
The following is a generalized scope of work for the North Broad Street Transportation and Access Study. Applicants for project consultant should use this generalized scope to develop a more detailed scope in their response to this RFP:
Task 1: Existing Conditions
The study team will document existing conditions of the corridor as they relate to transportation and access. These conditions will include but not be limited to land use, activity centers, transit facilities and service, traffic patterns and volume, parking (on-street and off-street), regulatory enforcement, pedestrian activity and safety, bicycle use, differences based on season, weekday v. weekend, time of day, etc.
Task 2: Stakeholder Interviews
The study team will conduct a minimum of fifteen (15) meetings or interviews with North Broad Street/Avenue of the Arts stakeholders. The list of interviewees will include a broad representation of interests along North Broad Street. These meetings will focus on development activities, transportation issues, and problems to be addressed by the study.
Task 3: Problems and Opportunities
The study team will synthesize information collected from its existing conditions analysis and stakeholder interviews and prepare a transportation-and-access problems-and-opportunities statement. These problems and opportunities will generally relate to current conditions, although the study team will include already-planned and programmed improvements to the North Broad Street corridor in this analysis.
Task 4: Future Needs
Working with key stakeholders and with information provided by PCPC, the study team will establish a statement of future transportation and access needs for the corridor, both short term (up to three years) and long term (three to 10 years, and beyond). Future needs will focus on potential development activity, growth and change in institutions, population changes due to residential redevelopment, needs or opportunities for major infrastructure enhancements, etc.
Task 5: Short-term Actions
The study team will prepare a written and graphic description of short-term actions, including order-of-magnitude costs, potential sources of funds, timeframe, participating parties, and lead or “owner” organization for each action.
Task 6: Long-term Strategies
Similarly, the study team will prepare a written and graphic description of long-term strategies, including order-of-magnitude costs, potential sources of funds, timeframe, participating parties, and lead or “owner” organization for each strategy.
Project Deliverables
The following deliverables will be prepared during the course of the study, culminating in a final report (with an executive summary that can stand alone). The study team will provide at the end of the project a CD-ROM containing all project deliverables:
Three Summary Memoranda (Tasks 1-4):
1. Existing Conditions and Stakeholder Interviews
2. Problems and Opportunities
3. Future Needs
Final Report (Tasks 5-6):
· Executive Summary
· Narrative summarizing Tasks 1-4
· Plan of corridor illustrating recommendations
· Narrative description of recommendations
· Design standards/details for selected improvements as appropriate
· Detailed Implementation Matrix
o Short-term Actions
o Long-term Recommendations
Project Schedule
· Months 0-3: Existing Conditions and Stakeholder Interview tasks and Summary Memorandum No. 1.
· Months 3-6: Problems and Opportunities and Future Needs tasks and Summary Memoranda Nos. 2 and 3.
· Months 6-9: Short-term Actions and Long-term Recommendations tasks, Final Report, and Executive Summary.
2.3 PUBLIC- AND PRIVATE-SECTOR INVOLVEMENT
Stakeholders
The North Broad Street Transportation and Access Study will build upon ongoing efforts focused on North Broad Street. The planning process already established by PCPC for its plan, Extending the Vision for North Broad Street, and public outreach and civic-engagement efforts of Avenue of the Arts, Inc., are sound starting points for continued involvement of and cooperation by stakeholders and advisors.