Fund and fix PA infrastructure | Park budget increase | Northwood Park wants attention | Philly’s cleanest block | South Broad life

Good morning, Streeters, and welcome to the working week. Did you check out the Marathon this weekend or Love Your Park? Send pix if you did. 

The Inquirer editorialized this weekend that inaction by Governor Corbett on transportation infrastructure funding is no longer a viable option: our bridges are crumbling, transit infrastructure is dated, and our vehicles take a beating on bad roads. It’s time for Pennsylvania to fund critical bridge and road repairs.

City park advocates got some good news: Funding to maintain Philly parks could finally increase, reports the Inquirer. City Council’s Appropriations Committee approved a budget increase of $2.675 million to pay for a Parks and Rec maintenance team. City Council and Mayor Nutter will also have to improve the increase.

That’s good news for neighbors of Northwood Park, who feel that the park has been forgotten by the city and say that the neglect sends the wrong message about the neighborhood, reports The Frankford Gazette. Neighbors want to see crews come to clean up the tangled brush along the railroad tracks and remove broken branches, nets on the tennis courts so that people might actually be able to use them, and some enforcement against the owners of vacant garages adjacent to the park.

This year’s cleanest block is the 6000 block of Carpenter Street.The Daily News checked in with Stan Williams, block captain of this year’s Clean Block Contest winner, about the teamwork and beautification efforts he and his neighbors take to keep their block in great shape. “We can go to any house and get cooperation about anything we’re doing around here, I mean absolutely anything,” Williams said. Want to see the 6000 block of Carpenter Street’s stiff competition? Revisit Community Contributor Ainé Ardron-Doley’s account of the contest from the judge’s trolley.

Inga Saffron argues that new life won’t come to South Broad Street until more people start living on it. Avenue of the Arts held a design competition seeking ideas to invigorate South Broad Street, and most finalists saw temporary uses and parks as tools to draw more people. Saffron says each team had some good ideas, these uses alone won’t be enough to make South Broad a stronger place filled with people.

The Buzz is Eyes on the Street’s morning news digest. Have a tip? Send it along.