June 16: 30th Street Station plan finalized | Historic nominations galore | The Oslo standard

Ashley Hahn wrote about the PECO building’s historic nomination yesterday, and there were a few other nominations of interest that will now be considered by the full Historical Commission: The Mutual Burial Ground of Kensington on Frankford Avenue, which lies beneath the Kensington Sculpture Gym; the Ott Camera building in Oxford Circle, the former Robinson department store building on Market East that looks like a sideways skateboard ramp, and a handsome row of 19th century apartment buildings on the 4000 block of Chestnut Street.

The 30th Street Station District Plan, now finalized, puts the public infrastructure costs for area redevelopment plans at around $2 billion over the next 35 years, writes Jacob Adelman, but the area is also projected to attract about $4.5 billion worth of private investment over that period, if all goes as planned. 

Andrea Frazier at Public Source looks into why low-income Pennsylvanians aren’t getting in on the savings from solar energy, and it isn’t just up-front installation costs. Pennsylvania’s unusual open border policy on State Renewable Energy Credits depresses the return on rooftop solar. 

Emily Badger explains how it is that people who are too poor to afford a vehicle still end up paying for parking.”[B]because cities typically require developers to build a minimum amount of parking — say, one spot per bedroom in each housing unit, or two per thousand square feet of commercial space — you may pay for the cost of parking even if you never drive a car.”

Mikael Colville-Andersen says Oslo’s new street design guide sets a new international standard for excellence in bicycle planning, improving on even the Danish and Dutch standards. 

The Ben Franklin Bridge will be lit up in rainbow through Friday night to honor the victims of the Orlando shootings.

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