June 20: City budget, $30m more for schools | PATCO ridership drop | Buffered bike lane dreams | Pedestrian safety | Cunningham Piano

Happy Friday!

At its final session before summer recess City Council passed a $4.5 billion operating budget, rafts of bills enabling things like bike share and affordable housing development, the Daily News explains. Council also came through with a bill that will provide an additional $30 million for the schools come fall, the Public School Notebook reports. After a lot of pushback over those additional funds down-to-the-wire negotiations broke the logjam. Now the focus turns to Harrisburg.

PATCO ridership has dropped 6%, and not just because of construction, the Inquirer explains.

With the cross-town bike lanes on Spruce and Pine streets well established, This Old City dreams of protected buffers for the Spruce and Pine bike lanes. Buffered bike lanes lead to safer rides and increased ridership.

Pedestrians are the forgotten majority when it comes to street users. In her column this week Inga Saffron explores how Philly’s approaches to pedestrian safety are evolving.

After more than a century spent in Philly, Cunningham Piano Company on Germantown Avenue could decamp for the suburbs. City Paper reports that the Germantown showroom is on the market. Cunningham started manufacturing pianos around the turn of the 20th century and after World War II business shifted to restoration. The biggest problem, City Paper explains: “It sometimes feels like people from San Francisco, Vienna and Beijing are more willing to make the trip to Germantown than people from the Philly suburbs.” 

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