Politics and History of Philadelphia's Center City Commuter Connection

8/10/2019 Politics and History of Philadelphia's Center City Commuter Connection

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Figure 1: Market East Station. Photo courtesy of Kyriakodis (2014)

PHILADELPHIAS CENTER CITY

COMMUTER CONNECTIONAn Examination of the Political and Technical Forces Behind an

American Transportation Project

ABSTRACTThe tunnel that links the two sides of

SEPTAs Regional Rail system

underneath Center City Philadelphia is

one of the nations most advanced

pieces of public transit infrastructure,

but it has a long and conflicted history.

This paper examines the political

aspects of that history and attempts to

assess the factors that brought the

tunnel to completion, arguing that

while the tunnels origins lie in

economic and land-use planning, it

was ultimately built because of

political ambition and patronage, and

that throughout its history, thetunnels transportation benefits in fact

went unrecognized by proponents and

critics alike.

Sandy JohnstonAPLN 543


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ContentsTable of Figures ............................................................................................................................................. 1

Introduction: Philadelphias Center City Commuter Connection, a Political Creature................................. 2

Center City Before the Tunnel ...................................................................................................................... 3

Origins of the Tunnel Idea ............................................................................................................................. 4

Federal Legislative Background .................................................................................................................... 9

Regional Transit: The History of SEPTA ....................................................................................................... 14

The Transformative Reactionary: the Mayoralty of Frank Rizzo ................................................................ 18

Triumph of the Tunnel: Rizzo, Ford, and Coleman ..................................................................................... 24

Opposition to the Project and the Breakdown of the Philadelphia Transit System ................................... 28

The Tunnel and the Potential for a Transformative Rapid-Transit System ................................................ 30

Conclusion, Evaluations, and Lessons Learned ........................................................................................... 33

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 36

Table of FiguresFigure 1: Market East Station. Photo courtesy of Kyriakodis (2014) ............................................................ 0

Figure 2: The "Chinese Wall", from hiddencityphila.org .............................................................................. 4

Figure 3: Center City Philadelphia in 1949, via USGS .................................................................................... 5

Figure 4: Route of the Tunnel, from Kozel (n.d.) .......................................................................................... 8

Figure 5: SEPTA Regional Rail and Rapid-Transit Lines, 1980. (From DeGraw 1994) ................................. 17

Figure 6: Mayor Wilson Goode and Other Dignitaries at the Opening Ceremony for the Tunnel, viaKyriakodis 2014 ........................................................................................................................................... 30
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Introduction: Philadelphias Center City Commuter Connection, a

Political Creature

Philadelphias Center City Commuter Connection project is a fascinating example of

American planning and infrastructure systems and the political, economic, and social processes

behind them. Opened in 1984, the projecta tunnel linking two historically separate sections of

Philadelphias commuter rail systemwas remarkable both for being opened more or less on-

time and under-budget (a rarity in American infrastructure projects) and for being an unusual

showcase for a city and transit system grappling with decline and disinvestment. How did

Philadelphia, known for being historically a conservative, slow-moving, old-fashioned city,

manage to bring about a successful, and even innovative and industry-leading, project during a

hostile climate of increasing inflation and extended transportation project delays? (Gaudet 1985,

p. 1)

This paper will examine the political and planning processes that brought the Commuter

Tunnel to fruition, focusing on three separate, but interacting elements: the local planning and

politics of Philadelphia, the dynamics of the federal funding processes that made the tunnel

possible, and the creation of SEPTA, the Philadelphia regions transit operator. Though since its

opening transit advocates and developers have valorized the tunnel and held it responsible for the

revival of Center City (as the core of Philadelphia is known), the commuter tunnel was at many

points during conception and execution not so much beholden to high principles of planning as

to the down-and-dirty patronage- and pork-laden local and federal politics of the day. Like many

planning projects, then, the Center City Commuter Connection as currently composed stands as a

product of both high-minded, principled planning and messy political horse-tradinga testament

to long-term thinking, dreams deferred, and unintended consequences negative and positive.


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Center City Before the Tunnel

Downtown Philadelphia was, for much of the late 19thand early-to-mid 20thcenturies,

served by two separate, and often competing, commuter rail systems owned by private

companies. The famed Pennsylvania Railroad (or, to the public, the Pennsy) operated a system

fanning out mainly to the citys south, west, and northwest, while the Philadelphia & Reading

(popularly known, and commemorated on the Monopoly board, as the Reading) owned lines

radiating to the citys north and northeast. Though the two systems competed in some areas (both

had lines to the city neighborhood of Chestnut Hill and both had lines to Atlantic City and the

New Jersey shoreline), they terminated in separate downtown terminals at opposite ends of

Market Street, the Pennsylvania on the western end and the Reading on the east. Both roads built

imposing terminals, with the Pennsy erecting first the Broad Street Station and later the imposing

Art Deco edifice known today as Suburban Station, and the Reading putting up the remarkable

Reading Terminal, which survives today as an enclosed, tourist-oriented market. Philadelphias

suburban routes are of some vintage, having been opened as far back as the 1830s, when Pennsy

predecessor Philadelphia & Columbia opened a route along the states former Main Line of

Public Works, a moniker that has stuck to Philadelphias wealthy northwest suburbs to this day.

(DeGraw 1994, p. 107) Both the Pennsy and the Reading had electrified most of their suburban

lines by the 1930s, making Philadelphias commuter system one of the most technologically

advanced in the country. (ibid)


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operations had been brought underground,

and both suburban networks were already

electrified, meaning that running commuter

trains through a tunnel was a real

possibility. And with the demolition of the

Chinese Wall came as well the possibility

of a physical and economic renewal for Center City, a transformation from the gritty, dirty

central city of the past to a clean, upscale commercial and office center for the futurea vision

that would prove the animating force behind the Commuter Tunnel.

The origins of the idea for the tunnel are somewhat obscure. Ujifusa (2008) reports that

famed Philadelphia planner Edmund Bacon may have thought it up in 1947. The tunnel was

definitely on the agenda in 1958-59, when it was included in a redevelopment plan for the

Market East district ordered by Mayor Richardson Dilworth and executed by Bacons City

Planning Commission (CPC) (Rottenberg 1993, Kozel n.d.) Kobrick (2010, p. 241) reports that

The Commuter Connection was first proposed by the Urban Traffic and Transportation Board

in 1958, was endorsed by the City Planning Commission in 1959, and was included in the citys

comprehensive plan in 1960.

Most likely, though, the tunnel was the idea of a young junior city land-use planner

named R. Damon Childs. Kyriakodis (2014) writes that

The CCCC was initially proposed in 1958 by R. Damon Childs, a planner with thePhiladelphia City Planning Commission. It was seen as a way to bring more people intoCenter Citywhich was losing population and business activity at the timeand wouldoffer improved access from Philadelphias western suburbs to the struggling department

stores on East Market Street. Besides reinforcing Center City as the regionstransportation hub, the tunnel would greatly improve the Regional Rail systemsperformance by allowing Philadelphias two original rail networks to work together.

Figure 3: Center City Philadelphia in 1949, via USGS


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When Childs died in 1998, after a fascinating career in Philadelphia public service that included

briefly succeeding Edmund Bacon as the citys planning director before running afoul of one of

Mayor Frank Rizzos cronies, the PhiladelphiaInquirers obituary gave him credit for the tunnel

idea. A 1984 article in theDaily Newsnoted that Childs came up with the idea while working

for the city Planning Commission. He was asked to brainstorm mass-transit ideas for a

comprehensive plan for the city. The goal year was 1980. (Kasper 1984) Bacon, in fact, appears

to have initially been quite skeptical of the plan, but both theInquirers obituary and theDaily

Newspiece report that Childs was able to convince the legendary planner of the ideas merit.

The tunnel landed in the citys 1960 comprehensive plan, though it would, of course, not

be carried out until well closer toin fact, after--the originally envisioned completion date of

1980. The plan described the tunnel concept this way:

The major proposal is to connect the two commuter railroads by a subway under FilbertStreet. Thus, the entire network of commuter lines in the metropolitan area would servetwo Center City stations, one in Penn Center west of Broad Street and one east of BroadStreet in the vicinity of 9thStreet. The Reading Terminal would be eliminated. Onlyminor terminal use would be made of Suburban Station. In addition to making CenterCity destinations more accessible to almost all of the growing metropolitan area,operating efficiency and economy would be improved. Execution of this proposal is ofcritical importance to the planned development of Center City. (City of Philadelphia1960, pp. 99-100)

This is, more or less, the way that the project would evolve 20 years later. There would be minor

differences (Suburban Station was renovated to be the western tunnel station), but all of the basic

elements of the commuter tunnel plan were already present in the city plan in 1960. It was the

execution, not the conceptual planning, that would be delayed.

By 1970, though the project had still not gotten off the ground, plans had become

somewhat clearer, with officials laying out the outlines of an operational framework even though

they had yet to secure federal funding. A report published in that year for the Redevelopment

Authority of Philadelphia noted that the unions and management of both the former Reading and


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former Pennsylvania lines, at this point all operated by the disastrous and short-lived Penn

Central, (but, notably, with labor still represented by different unions) had agreed to share

infrastructure and facilities once the tunnel was complete. (Economic Research Associates 1970,

p. 4) The report anticipated the continued growth of office employment in Center City, and

argued that the tunnel was a necessary part of that continued growth, since the areas parking and

street system was congested and rail facilities were close to reaching their maximum capacities.

For suburb-to-city movements, the physical layout of the two Center City terminal

stations themselves limited the systems ability to move passengers. Stub-end terminals such as

Suburban Station (as it existed then) and Reading Terminal are inherently inefficient, with trains

needing to navigate huge numbers of switches and crossings (and thus blocking the paths of

other trains) to enter and exit. The inefficiency of the stub-end terminals was, and still is,

aggravated by regulatory practices required by the Federal Railroad Administration that are not

standard practice in countries with more advanced rail systems, such as the requirement that

every train conduct a full brake test between runs. The brake test and crew changes resulted in

15-20 minute times between a trains arrival at a stub-end terminal and its departure, a hugely

inefficient process by international standards, or compared to the possibilities of a run-through

station. (ibid, p. 32) Indeed, by 1970, train congestion was so bad at the Center City terminals

that some trains were being stored out-of-service on the main tracks, further reducing

throughput. (ibid)

As a result of the crowded downtown terminals, the commuter rail system was operating

very close to full capacity at peak hours in 1970. At those times, many trains arrived with

standees, and while planners anticipated that some improvements in capacity could be achieved

with new equipment (the government-funded Silverliner cars had started to arrive, but did not yet


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comprise the entire fleet), it was clear that there was significant demand for more physical

capacity. And since economists expected the Center City office market to keep growing (and the

city fathers definitely desired that it would), planners considered additional capacity a necessity,

not a luxury. And the improvements that the tunnel plan offered in that regard were dramatic. In

1970, peak-hour capacity on the commuter lines into

Center City was around 27,000 passengers per hour; the

consultants estimated that that number could exceed

85,000 per hour if the tunnel and associated improvements

were completed. (ibid, p. 33) While the tunnel would

(eventually) be built, passenger numbers have never

approached that level; indeed, immediately after the

opening of the tunnel, SEPTA Regional Rail ridership per

day totaled around 85,000.

The key to understanding the origins of the idea for the Center City Commuter

Connection is that, despite its clear operational benefits, the tunnels roots lie not so much with

transportation professionals as with land-use and economic-development planners obsessed with

the revitalization of Center City Philadelphia. R. Damon Childs, when he first proposed the idea,

was not a professional transportation planner, but a junior land-use planner. When the concept

joined the formal canon of planning projects intended for Philadelphia, it was pushed not by the

railroads which owned (at that time) the affected infrastructure, but by Bacon and his affiliates in

downtown business circles. As Carolyn Teich Adams writes, As clearly as any other American

city, Philadelphia in the 1950s was run by a business/government partnership that determined the

direction of urban renewal.even when during periods when Philadelphia business elites were

Figure 4: Route of the Tunnel, from Kozel

(n.d.)


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alienated from city government, the emphasis in the capital budget remained on projects

favorable to their interests. (Adams 1988, p. 25) Philadelphias business elite supported a pair

of reformist postwar mayors, Joseph Clark and Richardson Dilworth, whose came from patrician

backgrounds but whose inclinations were strongly those of the Progressive movement of

previous decades. And in return, Clark and Dilworth supported downtown development as a

mode of reform and progress, believing it would benefit the city as a whole as well as the elite.

Those origins, integrating transportation, land use, and economic development favorable to the

citysbusiness elite, would be seen as a taint by some and a credit by others. They would,

regardless, decisively shape the destiny of the commuter tunnel project.

Federal Legislative Background

The Center City Commuter Connection was not, and was never intended to be, a project

funded by the city of Philadelphia, by the region, or even by the state of Pennsylvania, alone.

Planners and boosters anticipated federal involvement in funding the project from the very

beginning, perhaps not an unreasonable expectation in an environment where the federal

government seemed to be throwing cash right and left at highway projects. When the tunnel was

included in the citys 1960 comprehensive plan, however, the role of the federal government in

funding transit projects was (in distinct contrast to its involvement in highway funding) quite

unclear. Though the relationship between Philadelphia city and metropolitan politicians and the

federal government was quite often contentious, Philadelphia politicians would provide key

political support to the federal legislation that made transit assistance possible, and the federal

government would, eventually, repay that assistance in the form of funds for the prized tunnel

project.


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The key moment for the possibility of federal funding for the tunnelindeed, for all

transit fundingwould be the passage of the Urban Mass Transportation Act in 1964. The

UMTA (as both the bill and the Urban Mass Transit Administration it authorized were known)

was not, strictly speaking, the first formal federal aid to transit in the postwar period; as Smerk

(1985, p. 53) notes, A program of aid for transit demonstrations and low interest rate loans for

capital improvements was put in place by the Housing Act of 1961.The UMTA was, however,

the decisive legislative moment in the federal movement towards a more balanced transportation

funding scheme. President Kennedy had begun to move the country towards that balanced

approach before his assassination, and it fell to Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society supporting

cast to implement this part (and many others) of Kennedys extensive legacy. Specifically, the

UMTA authorized the Housing and Home Finance Agency to provide funds to both public and

private mass transportation companies through state and local governments. (Kobrick 2010, pp.

229-230)

Philadelphia politicians had been a key constituency lobbying in support of the UMTA.

Mayor James Tate, in particular, had been an enthusiastic supporter. Managing a city confronting

declining population and economic vitality due to suburban flight, the machine Democrat

(successor to the somewhat reformist, and definitely patrician, Richardson Dilworth) followed

the standard mayoral mode of trying to support downtown development as a way to win over the

citys business community. And Tates support for the UMTA brought him benefits as well; like

most mayors of Philadelphia, Tate was a master of the patronage machine (Siddiqi 1995, p. 446),

and bringing home the federal pork burnished him image as a patron of the city. Not that Tates

capacity for self-promotion needed much burnishing:

The initial outlay [of the UMTA] was $375 million, and it was hoped that Philadelphiawould receive $36 million of those funds. In fact, Mayor Tate announced the day before


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the bill was signed that Philadelphia had already applied for its first grant under the newlaw. A press release from the mayors office trumpeted Tate as a prime mover of the

bill, as he had testified before both the House and Senate about the need for federal urbanmass transit legislation.Tate was ecstatic about the legislation and proud of the role heplayed in lobbying for it. He attended the signing ceremony and afterwards planned to

frame a photo of the president signing the bill along with one of the pens Johnson hadused. (Kobrick 2010, p. 230)

Tates involvement with the UMTA would prove to be just the first of a series of episodes in

which Philadelphia politicians effectively leveraged federal transportation funding promises to

promote themselves and their administrations. Nevertheless, Tates promotion of the UMTA and

his glee at its passage would not assure Philadelphia of a federal funding commitment for the

cherished tunnel project; far from it.

From the beginning, Kobrick (2010, p. 243) write, Philadelphia planners

envisioned that the bulk of the money for the tunnel would come from the federal government

with additional funding to come from the city and the railroads. Indeed, the aforementioned

request for a grant that Philadelphia filed the day before the signing of the UMTA was for the

tunnel project. Despite Tates support of the bill, however, the newly created UMTA(the

agency) was skeptical of the tunnel project.

In many ways, Philadelphia officials themselves were responsible for federal skepticism

of the project. Among other things, UMTA required that metropolitan areas write a

comprehensive plan for regional transportation and create an agency to administer it before

transportation projects could be funded by federal dollars. Rather hilariously, the Philadelphia

region managed to botch even this seemingly simple project, as Kobrick (2010, pp. 244-245)

recounts:

In early 1966, theEvening Bulletin reported that the city stood to lose as much as $6million in federal funds because it lacked a comprehensive regional plan for masstransportation meeting the requirements of the Urban Mass Transportation Act. Withoutsuch a plan, the tunnel would be eligible for only one-half federal financing rather than


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two-thirds.A year later, in March 1967, Philadelphia still lacked a plan that compliedwith the requirements of the Act and was projected to be $7 million short of what itwould need to construct the tunnel.Walter Johnson, the executive director of theDelaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, which was responsible for publishing aregional transportation plan, expressed certainty that the federal government would come

through with the full amount of the requested grant.Unfortunately, Johnsons optimismwas misplaced, as the federal government soon afterwards revealed that it would makeonly a partial commitment because the DVRPC had yet to become a permanent agency.Once New Jersey, which had resisted making the agency permanent, gave its agreementto enter into a permanent arrangement with Pennsylvania and the DVRPC adopted along-range transportation plan, the city would then be able to apply for the remainingfunds.

The DVRPC situation would not be resolved until 1969. Five years after UMTA passedand

nine years after the tunnel, among other ambitious transportation projects that would require

federal funding, was placed in the city comprehensive planPhiladelphia still had not taken the

bureaucratic steps necessary to acquire the funding. And, as Walter Johnsons misplaced

optimism about federal generosity reveals, Philadelphia officials and planners still did not quite

grasp the new world of bureaucratized federal spending. No longer were personal connections

and political support enough to ensure remuneration; now a projects eligibility for federal

funding would be determined by a highly organized, supposedly objective set of standards set by

transportation professionals. Or at least that was how the system was supposed to work.

Nor was Philadelphias inability to get its bureaucratic house in order the only obstacle to

gaining federal funding for the tunnel. Federal officials did not have to look too deeply into the

projects record of support to see that it was being pushed primarily as a mechanism to promote

and enable future economic and employment growth in Center City, rather than as a panacea to

the Philadelphia regions transportation woes. The tunnel projects primary semi-governmental

benefactor was the Old Philadelphia Development Corporations Market Street East Committee,

formed in 1965 with a mandate to promote that section of the city, the area around Reading


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Regional Transit: The History of SEPTA

No history of the tunnel project is complete without an account of the politics and

dynamics of the creation of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA,

the regions public transit operating agency. The oft-acrimonious bureaucratic and political

battles that accompanied the creation and evolution of SEPTA mirror, in many ways, those about

the tunnel project itself; and the dream of the tunnel was often believe to be at odds with the

possibility of Philadelphia ever operating an efficient, pleasant, and coherent system of public

transit. Indeed, for almost two decades after its creation SEPTA itself took a skeptical attitude

towards the tunnel, unsure how it as an entity would benefit from the new infrastructure. Though

not the same, the history of SEPTA is inextricably intertwined with that of the Center City

Commuter Connection.

Like many cities, Philadelphia in the 1950s found itself struggling with the decline of its

aging transportation system. The equipment across the systemon the privately-owned bus and

streetcar lines, on the city-owned Broad Street Line subway, and on the commuter railroads

was creaking from old age and increasingly unreliable. The railroads and other transit companies

soon found themselves unable to turn a profit on passenger services in the wake of the newfound

dominance of the automobile. At the same time, the region still relied upon its transit

infrastructure; the ambitious program of freeways that would be laid out in the 1960

comprehensive plan was not yet complete (and much of it never would be completed). And in

any case, employment in Philadelphia, though decentralizing, was still strongly unipolar, with

Center City attracting far and away more commuters than any other point. Philadelphia planners,

to their credit, recognized early what planners in other cities would come to learn: a dense


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downtown with narrow streets would never be able to fully accommodate itself to the

automobile. Philadelphia would have to find a new way to support its aging transit system.

Though the equipment and service of the core urban transit lines was suffering in the

postwar era, ridership remained high, since many of the riders were transit dependent. The same

could not be said of the suburban commuter lines. Wealthier areas, of course, experimented with

car ownership sooner than poorer ones, and the exploding suburbs saw the fastest growth of all.

The Pennsy and Reading suburban operations found themselves in a vicious cycle of being

forced to raise fares to make up ridership losses, which in turn drove more riders to their cars,

and to government-subsidized (and free to the driver) freeways. Noting this crisis, in 1958 the

City of Philadelphia, in an innovative and at the time unparalleled experiment, partnered with the

railroads to stem the flow of decline in what was dubbed Operation Northwest. Operation

Northwest saw the city devote $160,000 of its own money to helping the Pennsy and Reading

step up frequencies on their parallel Chestnut Hill branches. Those lines were chosen because

they both run entirely within the city of Philadelphia, reaching out to the wealthy, semi-suburban

neighborhood of Chestnut Hill but running through neighborhoods of less prestige along the

way. In addition to running more trainsthe Pennsylvania ran every 15 minutes at rush hour,

and every half-hour the rest of the timethe city also helped to coordinate timed and discounted

transfers between the commuter lines and privately owned surface bus and streetcar lines, and

helped the railroads to discount fares. The results were clear:

In the fourth week of operation, the Pennsylvania carried 4,133 more passengers than ithad in the test week of October 6, before the plan went into effect, a gain of 14.8 per cent;

and the Reading picked up 2,422 passengers in the same week, an improvement of 7.6

per cent over its test week in May. For the entire four weeks, the Pennsylvania gained

11,128 additional riders; the Reading 7,099. The effect on city traffic already was

observable; 600 fewer automobiles a day were coming into the city from the suburbs.

(Cook 1958, p. 470)


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The Operation Northwest experiment was so innovative, and its results so spectacular, that it was

written up in The Nation(the article from which the above quote is taken),Business Week

(Business Week 1959) and the Saturday Evening Post (Morris 1961). It was the first step into

public subsidy of struggling transit properties, and the positive results would lead Philadelphia

decisively down that path.

The success of Operation Northwest led directly to other such Operations on other lines

in the following years, and eventually to the creation of SEPTA. SEPTA was created as an entity

in 1963 by an act of the Pennsylvania state legislature, with its purpose being the planning,

acquiring, holding, constructing, improving, maintaining, operating, leasing, either as lessor or

lessee, and otherwise functioning of a public transit system. (Siddiqi 1995, p. 422) For the first

several years of its existence, SEPTA held the role of coordinating subsidies to private operators

in all modes of transit. In 1968, it shifted into the role of direct operator by acquiring the

Philadelphia Transportation Company, which operated all transit within city boundaries,

including the city-owned Market-Frankford and Broad Street subway lines (though it had no role

in the operation of the commuter lines). (ibid, p. 424) SEPTA would go on to acquire the

suburban transit operations of the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (PTSC, the

famed Red Arrow) in 1970 and the Schuykill Valley Lines in 1976, thus bringing all of the

regions transit, with the exception of the suburban rail lines, under public ownership.1(ibid)

SEPTAs relationship with the commuter lines was rather more complex. As previously

noted, the regions first experiments with public subsidy for transit had been for the suburban

lines, which had (entirely understandably) led to significant protest both from other private

1The one transit property in Philadelphia not controlled, then or now, by SEPTA was the rapid-transit line over theBen Franklin Bridge, which was owned by the Delaware River Port Authority, and was extended to Lindenwold,New Jersey, and renamed the PATCO Speedline in 1969.


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operators and from transit-dependent city residents, who felt (accurately) that their interests were

being ignored in favor of wealthier suburban riders. Though the four suburban counties joined

the city of Philadelphia in providing subsidies to the commuter lines during the 1960s (DeGraw

1994, p. 107), there is no question that investment was being funneled from the center out. And

the biggest flashpoint for the conflict over the suburban lines was the plan for the elaborate

Center City tunnel.

The tunnel had been

inserted into SEPTAs capital

plan in 1966, despite the

complete lack of federal

funding. And yet, as an

institution SEPTAwhich was

focused on acquiring lines it

could directly controlwas

lukewarm on the possibility of

the tunnel, which, despite the crisis then occurring in the railroad industry, was not under current

plans going to be operated by the transit agency itself. SEPTA dragged its feet on several

measures relating to the tunnel, leading to considerable acrimony between city and SEPTA

officials:

By December 1968, [Philadelphia Mayor] Tates patience was reaching its limit. Blaming

tunnel delays in part on [SEPTA Chairman James] McConnon, Tate demanded theSEPTA chairmans resignation. McConnon had aroused Tates ire by opposing theestablishment of a separate corporation to run the commuter rail lines in the event thatSEPTA acquired thema mechanism the federal government was demanding in order toprotect railroad workers federal retirement benefits. SEPTAs suburban representativesopposed such a corporation, not wanting to become involved with railroad labor issues.

Figure 5: SEPTA Regional Rail and Rapid-Transit Lines, 1980. (From DeGraw 1994)


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McConnon refused Tates demand that he resign, blaming both Tate and the railroad

unions for holding up the tunnel. (Kobrick 2010, p. 249)

McConnon survived for several more years. The 1968-69 conflict between the city and SEPTA

over the tunnel revealed the complicated three-sided battle that would ensue over the ownership,

financing, and operation of the tunnel over the next decade. At one corner stood (figuratively

the tunnel would actually run under it) Philadelphia City Hall and the business interests that

backed it and the tunnel. At another point was SEPTA, which was single-mindedly interested in

pursuing its mandate to unify the regions transit system, and did not want to tempt fate by

inviting a labor battle such as the one that would indeed ensure when the agency did acquire the

suburban lines in 1983. On the third side were those who opposed the tunnel entirely, including

many African-American and working class city residents, many in the federal government, and

some railroad labor factions.

The Transformative Reactionary: the Mayoralty of Frank Rizzo

After the lost decade of the 60s, hopes had begun to perk up again for the tunnel in

1970-71. U.S. Transportation Secretary John Volpe had indicated some federal willingness to

fund part of the tunnel, and most of the bureaucratic tensions within the Philadelphia region had

been resolved. The first five years of the 1970s would see two additional important

developments for the tunnel: the election of Frank Rizzo as mayor of Philadelphia in 1972 and

amendments to the UMTA in 1974 that would loosen the rules of funding and make it easier for

Philadelphia to receive what it needed for the tunnel.

Frank Rizzos election as mayor in November 1971 proved to be a watershed moment for

the city as a whole, and incidentally for the Center City tunnel project as well. Elected mayor

from the position of Police Commissioner, Rizzo was an up-from-the-streets story, a former


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Richard Nixon administration, which brought City Hall into close contact with the federal

administration once again, as it had been during James Clarks lobbying for the 1964 UMTA.

Finally, though Rizzos relationship with downtown business elites could not reach the levels

achieved under Dilworth, the mayor did maintain some contact with the grandees of Market

Street. After all, if government investment was to be directed away from improvements in black

neighborhoods, public housing, and other projects that were anathema to Rizzos working-class

white constituency, the money had to gosomewhere, lest Rizzos administration be seen as

squandering an opportunity to bring money into Philadelphia. And thus, the tunnel emerged as a

reasonable project that offered some benefits for some of Rizzos constituents, cost the city

directly relatively little, and offered far more benefits to commuters than to (majority-black) city

transit riders.

Frank Rizzos connection to Philadelphias labor unions would be perhaps the most

purely transactional, straightforward, I scratch your back, you scratch mine element of support

for the tunnel project. As Kobrick writes,

By and large, it is fair to say that Philadelphias postwar transportation planning favoredbig business at the expense of the working class and poor. In the particular case of theCenter City Commuter Connection, however, an important exception to this generaltruism must be acknowledged. Whereas most Philadelphians opposed the tunnel in favorof improvements to SEPTAs urban transit system, members of the construction unions

that stood to win jobs building the tunnel felt differently. The construction sector oforganized labor, along with big business, formed a major constituency pushing for theproject, and in the eyes of some, had even more influence over Rizzo. AsPhiladelphiaMagazineput it, the economic slowdown of the early 1970s, had hit labor hard and theylet Rizzo know it. If the union officials who provided Rizzo with crucial support losttheir power, asserted author Mike Mallowe, so too would go the base of Frank Rizzoshard-hat constituency. (Kobrick 2010, pp. 380-381)

The tunnels construction was supposed to create up to 10,000 well-paying construction jobs.

(Kobrick 2010, p. 360) To Rizzos supporters in labor, it offered an unparalleled opportunity to

find employment in their own citythe rare major infrastructure project in the postwar era that


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would happen in an urban, rather than a suburban, context. Philadelphia had built some freeways

in the postwar era, but the extensive network envisioned in the 1960 comprehensive plan had

never materialized, and in an era where the federal government had funded several second-

generation transit systems, Philadelphias obsession with the tunnel had prevented it from

applying for such funds. Simply put, the tunnel was an exceptionally rare opportunity for the

construction unions, and there was very little Frank Rizzo could have done for them that would

have exceeded its benefits.

Just as James Tates close relationship with the Johnson administration had put the tunnel

project on federal radar in the 1960s, so too would Rizzos flirtation with the Nixon (and later the

Ford) administrations prove fruitful for Philadelphia, or at least his vision of it. True, Rizzo was

a Democrat; but, as Rick Perlstein notes (via Kobrick 2010, p. 382), he was Nixons sort of

Democrat. Indeed, Daughen and Binzen explain that Rizzos victorious 1971 campaign was

remarkably like the 1968 presidential campaign of Richard Nixon. On the stump, he singled out

a few scapegoats and spoke in soothing generalitieshe would take care of the criminalsAnd,

like Nixon, lest anyone accuse him of ducking the issues, he had available staff-produced

position papers. Rizzo and Nixon were like souls, dedicated with simple ferocity to hold on to

power and to punish those who opposed them with whatever means available. As Kobrick writes,

It therefore made sense that Nixonwho counted Frank Rizzo as one of his strongestsupporterschose Philadelphia as the test case for his strategy to destroy the DemocraticParty. Nixons Philadelphia Plan aimed to use voluntary affirmative action goals toincrease black employment in the construction trades. While the Republican base wouldnot be pleased, the true intent behind the plan was, as Perlstein explained, to drive a

wedge through theDemocratic coalition at its most vulnerable joint: between blacks andhard-hats. (Kobrick 2010, pp. 382-383)


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Just as Rizzo had imitated Nixons 1968 electoral strategy, Nixons Philadelphia Plan exploited

the same racial and class tensions that had allowed Rizzo to triumph in 1971. In tactics, it was

the mirror image of Rizzos actions, but at the intellectual core, the principles were the same.

And the special relationship between Rizzo and Nixon brought the mayor benefits too, as

Daughen and Blinzen recount in memorable manner:

During the 1972 Presidential campaign, when Richard M. Nixon was running forreelection against Democrat George S. McGovern, Frank Rizzo boarded a Metroliner atPhiladelphias Thirtieth Street Station (sic) and, with a group of aides and reporters,

traveled to Washington. Although he was a Democrat at a time when Nixons henchmenwere putting Democrats names on enemies lists, Rizzo was welcome at the White

House. On this particular day, he had an appointment in the Oval Office with Nixon, and,

to show his clout, he had gotten the reporters accompanying him past the White Housepolice and into the West Wing. The reporters were even permitted a few minutes in theOval Office, a privilege denied the White House correspondents assigned to cover Nixon,where the President assured Rizzo he would have no difficulty getting the federal aidPhiladelphia needed. (Daughen and Blinzen 1977, p. 222)

In the case of the tunnel, the last-mentioned promise was certainly of limited truth; the Nixon

administration proved only marginally friendlier to the tunnel project than had previous

presidencies. The close Rizzo-Nixon relationship did, however, come with certain benefits when

it came to the tunnel as well. Possibly on the same trip to Washington in 1972, Rizzo had a

persuasive encounter with Secretary of Transportation John Volpe:

The tunnel looked like it might be dead when Volpe announced DOTsrejection of theproject. Less than two hours after his announcement, however, Mayor Rizzo and his aidesgave Volpe a 45-minute presentation on the tunnel. When they were finished, Volpe metwith reporters and reversed himself, explaining that he had not understood fully thetunnels significance as a regional transportation project. Accordingto a later mayoralpress release, the presentation had saved the day.Rizzo aide Anthony Zecca boasted in a1979 interview, [Rizzo] talked to him for twenty minutesand Volpe came out and sayswe changed our minds and he resurrected the tunnel. And the records will show youthat.While Volpes decision was areprieve for the tunnel, it did not come with aguarantee of full financial support, and thus did not resolve the nagging issue of how theproject would be funded. (Kobrick 2010, p. 326)


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This was not the first time the tunnel had been approved by VolpesDOT, nor would it be the

last time it was considered dead or revived. The anecdote rather speaks to the pull that Rizzo,

whether by pure force of personality or more likely by dint of his mutually beneficial

relationship with President Nixon, was able to exploit with other federal agencies.

Finally, Rizzo was able to draw upon the support of the Center City business community.

Rizzo certainly did not enjoy the close personal relationship with the city fathers that Richardson

Dilworth had. City Halls movement away from the business community had begun under Tate,

and accelerated with the election of Rizzo, whose constituency lay more or less entirely

elsewhere. As Kobrick writes, In fact, according to some close to Frank Rizzo, the mayor was

skeptical about the tunnel and pursued it only in response to overwhelming political pressure

from the citys business interests. Reportedly Rizzo had derided the tunnel as a goddamn hole in

the ground, that wouldnt get him any votes from an urban constituency forced to use SEPTAs

crumbling mass transit system. (Kobrick 2010, p. 378) In other words, Rizzo had to be forced

into support for the tunnel. The fact that the downtown business community chose to use its

scarce political capital with Rizzos City Hall on this issue would seem to indicate its importance

to them.

And yet, as Teich-Adams argues, the Center City business community saw few truly

negative consequences from the breakdown of its relationship with City Hall: During the 1960s

the administration of the machine-style mayor James Tate was far less aligned with the business

community, and yet the proportion of Mayor Tates capital program that went to center city

projects and various citywide development projects was virtually the same as in the previous

decade. Mayor Rizzos administration during the 1970s did not close the gap between city

government and the business community; if anything that gap widened. (Adams 1988, p. 157)


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And yet, as the political chasm between Rizzos City Hall and the businessmen widened, capital

spending followed the same pattern; Even when the business community had no direct access to

city hall, the capital budget favored large-scale, developmental projects. (ibid) In other words,

the causal link between business access to City Hall and the city spending its capital budget on

projects that everyone else perceived as business-friendly was broken. City government was

going to spend the money, both its own and federal grants, on projects of which the business

community approved regardless of whether there was direct lobbying involved.

Triumph of the Tunnel: Rizzo, Ford, and Coleman

Ultimately, it would be under Rizzos supervision that Philadelphia finally got the reward

some of its leadership had been obsessing over for 15 years. As already noted, under John Volpe

Nixons Department of Transportation had shown some willingness to consider the tunnel

proposal, particularly after the UMTA was modified with new legislation in 1970 and 1974. The

funding issues were still to be worked out, and many federal officials remained suspicious that

the tunnel was not the best imaginable use of available federal funds. As Nixon left office under

a cloud of disgrace in 1974 there were certainly no guarantees that the tunnel would be built. The

coming years would prove decisive.

The resignation of Nixon and his succession by the relatively nondescript Gerald Ford

was a watershed time for the nation, a moment of self-questioning and uncertainty about the

future of the nation. In Philadelphia, the mood was no different, and with regards to the tunnel

project, which had benefited from the Rizzo-Nixon relationship, the new Ford administration

appeared to be a mixed bag. Fords idea of government differed in some significant ways from

Nixons, and in ways that would make the tunnel project suspect: William Grabske, Mayor


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of both the White House and the RNC, requested more information from Philadelphiaabout the tunnels costs and benefits in early 1975. (Kobrick 2010, p. 359)

This account is hard to square with Fords previous skepticism about the tunnel, but whatever

happened, the Ford administration suddenly became much more interested in the tunnel during

1975. Just a few days before Coleman (who was, indeed, to initially prove a roadblock) was to

take office, the UMTA, under severe political duress, sent a memo to the city of Philadelphia

giving preliminary approval for the tunnel and starting the process of writing a contract. (ibid)

Upon taking office, Secretary Coleman took the position, as had John Volpe, that if the

federal government were to provide the theorized 80% funding match for the tunnel, it certainly

would not do the same for cost overruns. And the cost of the tunnel had been, as infrastructure

projects are wont to do, rising dramatically, from a projected $40 million to around $300 million

plus ancillary costs in the mid-70s. (Kobrick 2010, p. 360) Coleman would, however, change

his mind about that particular ruling a short time later; just in time, in fact, for the tunnel to be

thrown into questionyet againby a breakdown in labor negotiations on the commuter rail lines,

set off by the threat of SEPTA taking over their direct operation. Resolved when the newly-

created federal corporation Conrail took over both operations (incidentally, bringing them under

the same management for the very first time), along with numerous other Northeastern railroads

in April 1976, the threat of disruption once again almost threw off the delicate negotiations

between local and federal officials.

Finally, and despite considerable local opposition to the tunnel (to be covered below),

Coleman and Rizzo concluded a contract in January 1977, when the Ford administration was

already a lame duck, agreeing to an 80%, or $240 million, federal cost share for the tunnel. The

Center City Commuter Connection was, at long last, on its way. The reasons for Colemans

apparent change of heart are much-debated. The most popular theory is that Coleman bought the


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propaganda emanating from Philadelphia City Hall about the number of jobs the project would

provide, and believed that many of those jobs would, as was legally required by federal

affirmative action policies, go to African-Americans. Looking back on the tunnel in 1993,

veteran Philadelphia columnist Dan Rottenberg wrote that Coleman promoted the tunnel not so

much for its transportation virtues but because he believed (erroneously, as things turned out)

that the project would open up Philadephia's construction unions to a large influx of black

workers. (Rottenberg 1993) Like many aspects of the tunnel project, if opportunity for black

workers was indeed Colemans goal in approving the project, this ideal, too, fell by the side of

the ugly, opportunistic realities of Philadelphia politics:

According toPhiladelphia Magazine, Coleman saw the Commuter Connection as aonce-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Philadelphias construction industry to increase itsminority representation dramatically. The Secretary insisted, therefore, that the finalagreement for the tunnel include provisions mandating that African Americans would beinvolved in substantial numbers in all phases of the projects construction. By 1979,

however, what the magazine called Colemans black power vision had falteredbadly, as the citys construction unions had failed to include more African Americanworkers and contracts awarded to black-owned business constituted a minisculepercentage of the projects total cost.Two years later, the situation had not improved. ThePhiladelphia Tribune reported that the tunnel had produced only 1,000 total jobs, a mere10% of what had been projected. African Americans had been promised 4,000 jobs buthad received only 250. According to the paper, reliable independent sources estimated

that black contractors had received only $1 million out of the $30 million of business thathad been pledged to them. An attorney studying the matter on behalf of the PublicInterest Law Center of Philadelphia alleged that major contractors were playing a game

by hiring black subcontractors and laborers to comply with federal requirements and thenlaying them off quietly. (Kobrick 2010, pp. 386-387)

Regardless of intentions, regardless of enthusiasm (of which there was very little in most places),

and regardless, apparently, of wisdom, as of January 1977 the Center City Commuter Connection

was on its way (though actual construction would not start until the following year, after one

final lawsuit from opponents was disposed of).


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Opposition to the Project and the Breakdown of the Philadelphia Transit

System

The Center City business communitys long and brutal battle for the prized tunnel had

been won, but the costs to the rest of the Philadelphia transit system had been high. As early as

the 1960s, the fact that the tunnel was diverting the regions attention from more immediate

transit investment needs had been apparent. The situation was not a simple one where a massive

infrastructure project sucked up all of the available local funds, since, after all, the federal

government had always been envisioned as paying for most of the tunnel; rather, the issue was

more properly framed as one of inattention or opportunity cost. Kobrick writes that the tunnel

delays had been disastrous from the perspective of Philadelphias overall transit planning. As of

late 1969, the Philadelphia region had received only $4.8 million in federal transit aid under the

Urban Mass Transportation Act, compared to over $100 million each for New York City,

Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco. (Kobrick 2010, p. 322)As we have seen, the Philadelphia

regions inability to exploit federal transit funding, exacerbated by bureaucratic infighting, was

more of a cause of the delays in the tunnel than a symptom. There is, however, no doubt that the

attention of planners and business leaders alike was diverted by the giant shiny object on which

they had fixed their sights.

The damage of that obsession would linger, and intensify, into the 1970s. A 1980 profile

of SEPTA inRailway Age wrote that

On a map, Philadelphias public transportation system looks impressive: almost 500miles of commuter, light rail, and conventional rapid transit lines weave through the cityand its suburbsthe third largest urban rail infrastructure in the country, mostlyelectrified and built to high-speed standards. Meanwhile, headlines tell of two spectacularrail projects, both well under way: a $307-million tunnel linking at last the regions oldPennsylvania and Reading commuter rail lines in a huge downtown complex, and a $90-million rail line from center city to Philadelphia International Airport.


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But the map turns to dust at a touch. Last November, the citys north-south Broad StreetSubway line came close to death by old age.elsewhere the situation has grown almost

as dismal. (Kizzia 1980, p. 34)

The Broad Street lines cars were ancient, dating back mostly to 1928, with the newest ones built

a decade later. Other lines and services had seen similar levels of disinvestment from basic

maintenance and updating. And the problems could seem intractable at times; Tom Kizzia wrote

in theRailway Ageprofile that local politicians seem to be awakening to the fact that

institutional obstructions and scrambled jurisdictions are greatly to blame for SEPTAs state of

dilapidation. (ibid) And whilein 1980 that was a hopeful note, it also testifies to the extent of

ignorance about the true state of the systemand its causesthat regional politicians and

leaders exhibited before then.

And the tunnel was at the center of what critics charged was a consistent pattern of abuse

of public trust and misconduct. Kizzia wrote that

Philadelphias transit problems are the result of decades of political squabbling and

difficulties in obtaining local financial support, but there is another factor as well. Inrecent years the transit system has received large capital grants from the federalgovernment. But while the rail and bus system crumbled, city administrations used thosegrants to fund large economic development projects.

Foremost among those projects has been the 1.7-mile downtown commuter rail tunnel,now estimated to cost $307 million, with most of the federal share coming from fundsearmarked for modernization rather than for new starts. It pushes everything else we

need into a lower priority, says [then-SEPTA chairman David] Gunn. (ibid)

The tunnel certainly offered potential operational benefits for the commuter services (by then

funded, but still not directly operated, by SEPTA), but it was hard for the agency to see past the

decades-old railcars and falling-apart infrastructure it was forced to make do with elsewhere.

And the common citizens of Philadelphia took note of the leaderships obsession with the

tunnel. Though business elites and City Hall tried to portray the tunnel as having popular backing

(not least to skeptical federal officials),


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In fact, public opinion ran against the project heavily, at least among those willing toexpress their opinions publicly. Citizens wrote letters to government officials,newspapers, and radio and television stations, formed advocacy organizations, and evenfiled a lawsuit to stop the tunnel from being built. City residents who had no choice but toride SEPTAs ancient, neglected urban transit system could not fathom how SEPTA and

the city could justify using $240 million in federal funds to construct a railroad tunnelthat would be used primarily by suburban commuters, instead of using those funds toimprove and maintain the citys subways, buses, and trolleys. (Kobrick 2010, p. 342)

It is hard to argue that the citizens who criticized the tunnel project were wrong to do so. There is

no doubt that in the interimthe funds devoted to the tunnel project would have been better spent

on state-of-repair issues with the rest of the transit system. However, the cost of the tunnel, the

perception that it would be used mostly by suburban commuters, and the ugly racial politics

surrounding it prevented some critics from

recognizing its transformative potential.

The Tunnel and the Potential for a

Transformative Rapid-Transit

SystemCertainly, the obsessive focus that

Philadelphia officials had with the tunnel from

the time it was placed in the citys

comprehensive plan in 1960 until its approval by federal officials in 1977 took their attention

away from the day-to-day challenges facing much of the rest of the regions transit

infrastructure. It is no accident that things began to perk up for SEPTA in the late 70s, as the

tunnel moved across the finish line. But had the tunnel been used to its full potential (and to date,

it never has been), it could have been the first piece of a nation-leading rapid-transit system,

moving Philadelphia from the category of cities that operated a staid suburban service for 9-to-5

commuters to a place of its own as the only North American city to operate a European-style

Figure 6: Mayor Wilson Goode and Other Dignitaries at the

Opening Ceremony for the Tunnel, via Kyriakodis 2014


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overground rapid transit system, an outcome that, had it been implemented, probably would have

quieted a large proportion of the tunnel projects critics.

As we have seen, as early as 1970, a report prepared for Philadelphias Redevelopment

Authority had shifted the PR emphasis on the tunnel from its strident focus on downtown

development to an understanding that it had transportation benefits as well. That report

emphasized the tunnels potential to raise the systems peak-hour capacity from 27,000

passengers per hour to the enormous number of 85,000, capacities more in line with an urban

subway system than a commuter railroad.It also, however, brought an early focus on reverse-

commuting, a concept relatively new to the American scene in 1970. The report acknowledged

that the suburbanization of regional employment that had happened in the 60s was likely to

continue, and even accelerate. Even though Center City was expected to grow as well as an

employment centerindeed, the whole tunnel plan was premised on its growthin 1970

employment opportunities in the suburban counties of the region [were] increasing at twice the

rate expected in the urban counties of Philadelphia and Camden. (Economic Research

Associates and Redevelopment Authority 1970, p. 25) The transit system was not yet adapted to

the needs of the growing numbers of reverse-commuters; For the predominantly white,

relatively affluent, suburbanite, this difficulty can usually be avoided by use of the automobile,

howeverfew residents of [poor urban areas] are able to afford private means of transportation

to work or even to look for potential work. (ibid, pp. 25-26) With its already built-out suburban

infrastructure, the commuter rail system offered the best potential for serving these unlucky

workers.

To their credit, Philadelphia and SEPTA officials seem to have recognized this potential

in the tunnelor, perhaps, that transformative change was necessary if the expense of the tunnel


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was to be justified. Before its opening, they contracted with University of Pennsylvania professor

Vukan Vuchic, an expert in urban transit systems, and his colleagues to produce a detailed

operating plan for the new system. Cognizant of the need to realize the tunnels potential through

re-framing the terms of service through it, Vuchic wrote that the Tunnel will be an important

step in converting a commuter rail system, transporting primarily commuters into and out of

center city, into [a] multipurpose regional transit system supported by extensive local transit

services throughout the region. (Vuchic and Kikuchi 1984, p. 1-4) Vuchics models for the

project were not the commuter rail systems common in American cities but rather European

metropolitan areas such as Brussels, Hamburg, Munich, and Paris. In German-speaking cities,

the aboveground urban-suburban rapid-transit system, often reliant on a center city tunnel such

as Philadelphias, is typically known as an S-Bahn, while in Paris it is called the RER; Vuchic

planned to make Philadelphia North Americans first example of such a system. Sadly for

Philadelphia, Vuchics plan was never fully implemented, and train frequencies on most

branches of the system remain well below his recommendations. Vuchic would go on to write a

series of plans for the system over the following two decades, with an increasing level of

bitterness. And it is hard to blame him; after all, Philadelphia had managed to build one of the

nations most advanced pieces of transportation infrastructure, the onlyplace in the US where

commuter rail trains run through downtown to destinations on the other side. It had neglected the

rest of its transit system for two decades in order to do so. And now, it was refusing to take

advantage of the tunnels full potential to serve the citizens who had long suffered from its

monopolization of the regions transit funding.


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Conclusion, Evaluations, and Lessons Learned

Ultimately, then, what is one to make of the Center City Commuter Connection? Given

its sordid political and economic history, it is a remarkably advanced piece of infrastructure,

albeit one whose potential remains unrealized. In many ways, the situation after the opening of

the tunnel remained similar to the one before it: distracted by the shiny object of their

achievement, Philadelphia officials neglected to provide the basic service upgrades that would

justify its massive costs. Poetically, less than a week after the tunnels ceremonial opening in

November 1984, an inspector noticed that a bridge on the Reading main line north of Center City

was so dangerously dilapidated that it was in imminent danger of collapseand ordered the

entire line shut down for weeks. (Nussbaum 1984) The decades of disinvestment had taken their

toll. And while SEPTA officials were prone to blaming the maintenance issues on the Regional

Rail lines on previous owners Conrail and Penn Central, they acknowledged that the tunnel was

an incongruous insertion into a decaying system. In the wake of the bridge incident, SEPTA

assistant general manager Frank Wilson toldPhiladelphia Inquirer transportation reporter Paul

Nussbaum that the tunnel was like transferring a new heart into an 80-year-old body, while

City Councilman Ed Schwartz offered the analogy that it was like putting a V-8 engine in a

Maxwell. Then you step on the accelerator and the car falls apart. (two quotes: Nussbaum 1984)

Whatever the analogy, these quotes seem an appropriate summary of the tunnela powerful

engine, perhaps, in 1984 as in 2014 starved of gas.

Whatever the unfortunate transportation aspects of the tunnel, it has been considered an

unparalleled triumph for Center City. Looking back at the tunnels past in 1993, Dan Rottenberg

wrote that


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With the benefit of hindsight, today we can see that the tunnel's critics all suffered from,well, tunnel vision In retrospect, the Commuter Tunnel was a heroic and farsighted

civic engineering project, comparable to the Brooklyn Bridge or the Moscow subway orthe reversal of the course of the Chicago River. In spite of ourselves, sometimes wePhiladelphians collectively respond in heroic fashion to civic challenges. Now, if only we

could figure out how and why. (Rottenberg 1993)

Even if Rottenbergs language is comically exaggerated, it was apparent almost a decade after

the opening of the tunnel that it had helped Center City rebound, causing (or at least helping

along) a development boom just like what tunnel backers had always hoped for. The nature of

the development was a little different; Center City today is one of the top residential downtowns

in the country and has a significant amount of office space, although retail has largely stayed in

the suburbs. Of course, as with any transit-oriented development, it is hard to tease out

correlation from causation; sources as early as the 1970 Redevelopment Authority report had

chronicled new development in Center City, so saying that the building boom there could be

attributed to the tunnel is overly simplistic. It is, however, fair to say that a narrative of the

tunnels success had taken over the popular consciousness in Philadelphia within a decade of its

opening, a rather remarkable turnaround.

In the final calculation, the political aspects of the Center City Commuter Connection can

perhaps be best summed up by Carolyn Teich Adams framework of off-budget,

developmentalcity infrastructure projects. She writes,

The citys second capital budget is the collection of projects financed primarily off-budget by revenue bonds of intergovernmental grants or a combination of the two. Suchprojects do not normally compete for funds with those in the tax-supported budget; theyconstitute an entirely separate category of expenditures. They are usually supported by awell-financed coalition of developers and business interests; what opposition existscomes from residents or business people who may be displaced by new construction. Butbecause developmental projects can be sold to the public as contributors to the localeconomy, and because the money need not come from the coffers of city government, tooppose them is tantamount to opposing civic progress. Once approved, these projects aremost often managed outside the city government, much the same way that any businessmanager would operate...[the] overriding obligation to their bondholders, rather than to


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the urban electorate, leaves them little room to shape their operating policies in ways thatadvance the public welfare. (Adams 1988, pp. 165-166)

Many aspects of Adams framework fit the tunnel to a T. The Commuter Tunnel is perhaps best

understood as a developmental project that happens to have significant transportation benefits;

indeed, its original supporters were unabashed in their acknowledgement of this reality. As a

developmental project, there should be little surprise that there has, throughout the tunnels

history, been little concern for using the infrastructure in a way that would maximally benefit the

public welfare. The tunnel exists now, and it is considered a success; but the challenge of the

current generation of planners and activists is to recognize its history and baggage, and to

continue pushing for the tunnels unused potential to be realized.


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Politics and History of Philadelphia's Center City Commuter Connection

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