Philadelphia collected $21 million in fees to improve pedestrian safety. Sidewalks are still treacherous.

After a stray bullet cost Amanda Parezo the use of her legs two years ago, she vowed to do everything in her power to adapt to her new circumstances. She worked hard at physical therapy, learned to use a wheelchair, and mastered the tricky business of opening heavy doors while seated. Just five months after she was shot in the spine during a kickball game in a Fishtown park, Parezo was back at her Thomas Jefferson University teaching job.

But no matter how much Parezo tries, it has been nearly impossible for her to adapt to Philadelphia’s chaotic sidewalk closures. Whether the 37-year-old occupational therapist is hurrying up Chestnut Street to teach a class, or heading to an Old City cafe to meet friends, her path is regularly blocked by construction barriers. Their presence leaves her little choice but to take a circuitous detour — or risk her life by maneuvering her wheelchair through traffic.

The extent of the danger hit home for Parezo this fall, when she was traveling along Second Street, past a site where a six-story building is being constructed by BVG Property Group and Zatos Investments. The developers had moved a construction fence halfway across the sidewalk, leaving only a narrow track for pedestrians. Parezo’s wheel snagged on a piece of broken concrete and she was catapulted out of the chair. She landed on the curb, inches from the cars whizzing by. “I managed to grab my wheelchair just in time to keep it from rolling into the street,” she told me.

Philadelphia likes to boast that it is among America’s most walkable cities, but sidewalk blockages make getting around a life-or-death experience for all of us, whether we walk or roll in a wheelchair.

This is not a new problem. In 2008, then-Councilmember Jim Kenney highlighted the issue and pledged to crack down on developers who hog the sidewalk.

Kenney did, in fact, succeed in advancing a series of measures regulating sidewalk closures. For the first time, developers were required to pay a fee to use the public right-of-way. They also had to install corner signs alerting pedestrians to upcoming closures. But in his seven years as mayor, his administration has only haphazardly enforced the laws he once championed.

Kenney’s failure to use the laws effectively hasn’t kept the city from reaping a financial windfall. Since 2017, Philadelphia has pulled in almost $21 million from sidewalk closure fees, according to a tally compiled by the Streets Department at my request. But because the money goes into the city’s general fund, where it gets gobbled up by other needs, those fees have done little to keep pedestrians safe or prevent developers from monopolizing the sidewalks.

To understand the situation better, I called Michael Carroll at the Streets Department. Before I could get a question out, Carroll, who is deputy managing director for Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability, told me: “We feel like we can do better.”

Despite the mountain of money raised from fees, Carroll said the department doesn’t have enough inspectors to keep tabs on all the construction sites around the city, and make sure developers install proper walkways and signage. “Our portfolio keeps expanding,” he continued, noting that the department is now responsible for regulating streeteries.

The situation at Second and Race, where Parezo was knocked out of her wheelchair, is a perfect example of how the administration has failed Philadelphia’s pedestrians. After the developer installed a flimsy construction fence that partially blocked the sidewalks on both Second and Race Streets, several people called in complaints to 311. In October, Richard Thom, an Old City architect who knows Parezo, contacted Councilmember Mark Squilla’s office.

“A few days later, I get an email telling me that the case has been investigated and the property owner received a citation,” Thom told me. No changes were made, and the plywood fence continued to encroach on the sidewalk.

After I requested information about the site Wednesday, the Streets Department sent another inspector. The developer received another violation for failing to provide a 6-foot pedestrian path, according to a department spokesperson. Thom predicts the construction fence will probably end up encroaching on the sidewalk again. Rather than repeatedly issuing violations, he believes the Streets Department could solve the problem by requiring the developer to install a covered walkway in the street.

Situations like the one at Second and Race can be found all over downtown Philly, which is seeing a surge in high-rise projects. There are three tall buildings going up on 12th Street alone — one on every block between Chestnut and Locust. The stretch of 23rd Street, between Market and Arch Streets, has a similar concentration of large construction projects, as does Spring Garden Street, east of Sixth Street. All pay sidewalk fees, but only a few provide pedestrian walkways.

With its narrow, colonial-era streets, Philadelphia has never been an easy place to erect a large building. There is usually little room on the site for the lifts and cranes needed to hoist steel beams. Delivering materials to the site requires military-level logistics. So, it’s not unreasonable for developers to ask to use the sidewalk to store supplies and operate construction equipment.

The problem is that the Kenney administration hardly seems to care what happens next.

Because every construction site is different, it’s up to the Streets Department to determine whether a pedestrian walkway is needed and whether the street can accommodate the structure. Unfortunately, many city engineers seem more focused on making sure traffic flows smoothly than on protecting pedestrians.

Two Market Street construction sites, located two blocks apart, demonstrate how arbitrary the city’s decision-making can be.

At 30th and Market, where SEPTA is building a new headhouse for the Market-Frankford Line, no sidewalk shed was required. Nevermind that the intersection, which is next to William H. Gray III 30th Street Station, happens to be one of the busiest pedestrian intersections in the city, with a steady stream of people flowing between the station and the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University campuses.

Now pedestrians must travel a full block out of their way, crossing two streets and dodging traffic to get around SEPTA’s construction site. Meanwhile, cars zip along Market Street, just as they always have.

Just two blocks west, the situation is reversed. Brandywine Realty Trust, which is building a large life science lab, was easily able to carve out space in the street for a covered walkway. Pedestrians walk freely past the site, as if nothing had changed. Based on my observations, traffic is unaffected.

At both Market Street sites, the street conditions are identical: two lanes in each direction. Since the projects are so close, it’s reasonable to assume the street carries the same volume of car traffic in both locations. So, why would the Streets Department require a walkway at one site, while giving the other a pass? Carroll said he didn’t know the rationale that informed the department’s decision to exempt SEPTA from installing a walkway.

Unfortunately, pedestrians will have to deal with the mess for years.

The laws regulating sidewalk closures were never meant to be about collecting fees. The real goal was to ensure that pedestrians didn’t lose access to a public amenity.

Since developers sometimes have no choice but to occupy the sidewalk during construction, Councilmember Helen Gym sponsored a bill in 2017 aimed at encouraging more of them to install covered walkways. Developers who provide those structures can reduce their sidewalk fees significantly. But there have been few takers, partly because the fees are set relatively low.

In an interview, Gym blamed the administration’s lack of enforcement. “The situation has gotten completely out of control,” she complained.

Some closures can last for years. The sidewalk in front of the Laurel, a luxury residential tower across from Rittenhouse Square, was first blocked off in 2019. During the last four years, the developer, Southern Land Company, paid the city $698,000, yet there was clearly little pressure to take down the barriers. Pedestrians didn’t get the sidewalk back until last week, months after tenants had already started moving into the $300 million building.

Other cities seem to have figured out a better approach. New York is far stricter about requiring developers to install safe passages for pedestrians. Sometimes that means that they have to elevate their construction equipment, by placing it on top of a sturdy, covered walkway. On narrow streets, where it is not possible to shut down a traffic lane, those platforms ensure pedestrians always have a safe place to walk.

Several local pedestrian advocates, such as the Clean Air Council and Feet First Philly, are hoping the next mayor will treat sidewalk closures as a public safety issue. They believe there is a link between today’s gun violence and the city’s failure to enforce order in the streets — from trash dumping to illegal parking in the median lane. The groups plan to ask candidates to explain how they would approach the problems at the city’s annual Vision Zero conference on March 31.

“People feel no one is watching,” said the Clean Air Council’s William Fraser. “The safety concerns are causing car ownership rates to go through the roof.”

Many pedestrian advocates believe that nothing will change under Philadelphia’s existing government structure, and want to see the city revise its charter to create a cabinet-level Department of Transportation. As long as a department called “Streets” oversees policies impacting pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders, their decisions will continue to favor the automobile.

The heightened enforcement can’t come soon enough for Amanda Parezo. After she was shot, she made a conscious decision to stay in the city because she believed it would allow her to live as normally as possible. Despite everything that has happened, she said, “I really love this city. I just feel like the city sometimes hates me.”