February 16: Philly Mag’s transportation issue | Last days of LOVE Park skateboarding | Bad Bart

Inga Saffron critiques two Bart Blatstein projects in the news recently, the mixed-use tower at Broad and Washington and the strip mall development proposed for the former Foxwoods site in South Philly. “His plans for Broad and Washington, and for the sprawling Foxwoods parcel on the Delaware River, are throwbacks to an era when superblocks and surface parking were considered progress here. While the two designs look nothing alike, they are really variations on a theme.”

Also on the Delaware, K4 Associates are teasing a 34-story tower concept at Reed Street, on a riverfront parcel formerly owned by Sheet Metal Workers Local 19. Matt Ruben, wearing his Central Delaware Advocacy Group hat, tells Jacob Adelman this is out of step with the Master Plan for the Central Delaware, and elaborated on Facebook that this would create more housing than can realistically be absorbed on the site.

Philly Mag dedicating their cover feature to a popular treatment of twenty items on the urbanist transportation reform wishlist has to be some kind of watershed moment for the recent popularity of city planning issues in the public consciousness. We are delighted by the thought of people reading about variable-rate parking pricing and road diets in the grocery aisle.

Videographer Cory J. Popp is out with a new video of skateboarders braving the cold at LOVE Park this weekend, taking advantage of Mayor Jim Kenney’s permission to skate there before the park is closed for renovations.

The Historical Commission will consider a nomination to add the former home of notorious South Philly mob boss Angelo Bruno, the “Gentle Don,” to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, reports William Bender. 

David Schaper at NPR reads a new study from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute confirming the trend that younger Americans have been driving less, this time using driver licensing data. “According to the study, only 69 percent of 19-year-olds have a driver’s license in 2014, compared with almost 90 percent in 1983.”

The giant snow pile at Broad and Washington got decorated for Valentine’s Day by street artist Keech. Head over to Conrad Benner’s Streets Dept blog for more photos.