Northeast Philly neighbors sue to block PennDOT’s plans to narrow a commercial corridor for cars, add bike lanes

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Just before a weekday morning rush hour in mid-June, Robert Rudnitsky stood at the corner of Magee and Castor Avenues to explain why he recently filed a lawsuit against PennDOT, SEPTA and his own state representative, Jared Solomon.

Rudnitsky leads Take Back Your Neighborhood, a community organization where he also serves as zoning chair.

Known for working alongside city officials to support local development, he’s now taking a stand against a project he believes threatens the commercial corridor of Castor Avenue in Northeast Philly.

It all started nearly two years ago when a road construction project caught his attention.

It was a $27 million traffic safety and beautification project along a 1.7-mile stretch of Castor Avenue between the intersection of Roosevelt Boulevard and Oxford Circle to Cottman Avenue.

“We don’t understand why somebody would want to reduce the roads because you won’t get them back,” Rudnitsky said as a woman passed walking her children to school. “The biggest concern is parking. Right now, we have good parking. The second concern is the reduction of traffic. And three solid years of this road being torn up. Most of these businesses will not make it through three years. And they’re not going to apply for the insurance.”

Organizers instead want to see safety improvements like red light cameras, speed bumps and left-turn signals without reducing the road width.

“The best case scenario is to give the folks the beautification that they would like, some better lighting, trash cans, spruce up the street. Obviously, incorporate the bike lanes … we’re okay with everything. Just don’t touch the road,” Rudnitsky said.

But that’s exactly what PennDOT is proposing, to take a four-lane road that’s 25 miles per hour, down to two lanes in each direction with a center turning lane delineated by yellow lines.

The project would add separated bicycle lanes, reducing the width and replacing aging sidewalks, bumping the sidewalk out into the street at intersections for the Route 59 SEPTA bus that runs on an electric trolley track overhead and install brighter street lights that will illuminate pedestrians better.

Vehicle crashes and pedestrian deaths

The goal is to reduce crashes, both between vehicles and involving pedestrians, according to project plan responses on PennDOT’s website.

PennDOT declined an interview request for this news story.

In recent years, the state transportation agency has already lowered the speed limit along Castor Avenue from 35 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour.

A dozen people have died on Castor Avenue, and there have been 908 crashes between 2005 and 2024, according to PennDOT data.

Five people, three of whom were pedestrians, have recently died.

In April 2019, a pedestrian was fatally injured by a vehicle on a dry, clear day at the corner of Magee Avenue and Castor Avenue.

In February 2020, a pedestrian died after being hit by a vehicle on a wet, rainy night at the corner of Stirling Street and Castor Avenue.

In May 2021, a pedestrian was fatally struck on a dry, clear night at the corner of Unruh Avenue and Castor Avenue.

The remaining two deaths happened as a result of vehicle crashes at the intersection of Comly Street and Castor Avenue, both on dry, clear nights in November 2019 and August 2020.

PennDOT refutes neighbor claims that the project would cause traffic congestion and that during morning rush hour would add 6 seconds – or less than half a second per block. During afternoon rush hour, travel time would increase by about 3 seconds per block for a total of roughly 38 seconds for a vehicle traveling from Roosevelt Boulevard to Cottman Avenue along Castor.

PennDOT shared that removing travel lanes in a process known as a ‘road diet’ reduces crashes between 19% and 47%.

The state does not expect the changes to affect emergency vehicle response times.

The project funding stems from highway safety improvement funds, Automated Speed Enforcement fund, aka red light cameras, and the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development’s Multimodal Transportation fund.

Neighbors like Rudnitsky worry about traffic congestion, parking, loading zones for business deliveries and bus route changes.

The lawsuit names State Rep. Jared Solomon, who co-founded Take Back Your Neighborhood 14 years ago and has been spearheading the project. He has hosted several community meetings and conducted business owner outreach.

Rep. Solomon described the lawsuit as a “nuisance suit” and was confident that the project would not get tied up in court.

“Everybody is moving forward,” Solomon told WHYY News. “We did literally door-to-door business engagement, but we didn’t just do that, we had so many public meetings.”

Solomon said he’s looking forward to the improvements that will begin construction in 2027.

“When you’re a person with a disability or a senior who has mobility issues, you literally have to go out onto the street to get the bus. What we’re doing is bumping out that curb line to make it flush against the street,” he said. “That will make traffic move a lot faster actually, than it does currently because you have to zig and zag around the bus.”

Businesses worry about parking

There are about 200 businesses along Castor Avenue as a commercial corridor.

Some business owners are concerned about parking access for their customers, who are most likely to drive up to their store entrances.

Like By Brazil, a convenience store that sells Brazilian merchandise and wire transfer services for remittances on the corner of Castor Avenue and Levick Street.

Manager Adalton Rosa De Abreu says that safety along Castor Avenue could be improved and wants investment, such as adding a dedicated left turn light signal for vehicles, more street lights and easier parking for customers.

Instead, in recent months, he’s noticed there are now several handicap parking only spots within 50 feet of the store’s entrance, which means customers have to walk further or are likely to be surprised with a parking ticket.

Abreu argues that Castor Avenue is not a quiet residential street but a bustling commercial corridor where keeping traffic flowing is key to attracting customers and getting seamless truck deliveries. Vehicles often have to pass the electrified bus that runs along the avenue when it stops at corners. He’s seen very few bicyclists who ride along Castor.

He worries that within the first year of construction, the small businesses along the corridor will close, and customers will go to competitors along Roosevelt Boulevard or Cottman Avenue instead.

ENGLISH 

“Because it’s a street that’s wider and longer, a street that started with a few businesses and a street that’s mostly businesses that has a lot of commercial activity.” 

SPANISH

“Porque es una una calle que más amplia, más larga y es una calle que se empezó con un poco business y es una calle más de negocios, tiene más eh movimientos business.”

Abreu says he’s hopeful that local leaders will reconsider their plans and invest the way that businesses would prefer, instead of an all-or-nothing situation.

He’d be interested in the roadway repairs so crosswalks, lanes and parking could be clearer, which might improve safety. Abreu says he’d rather see more security, such as street lights, because most of his customers drive instead of walking in.

ENGLISH 

“Yes, I think that the city [and the state] should listen a little more to merchants and understand that we don’t want the city not to invest.”

SPANISH 

“Sí, yo pienso que la ciudad [y el estado] podría oír un poco más a los comerciantes y entender que no nosotros no queremos que la ciudad ah no a la no queremos que la ciudad no haga inversión.”

While some neighbors and business owners have asked for improvements without narrowing the road, both Solomon and PennDOT explained it’s not possible to design it like that.

“We don’t want people to die on Castor Avenue because of speeding. The way you do that is you have to slow people down,” Solomon said. “You can’t really have that good pedestrian look and feel when people are going 60, 70 miles an hour and using Castor as a highway.”

A dangerous road for some

For bicyclists like Linh Nguyen, she sees the lawsuit as some of her neighbors pushing back against any changes.

“They want to keep things the same. They want to drive everywhere and they want free parking a plenty,” Nguyen said, who is a member of Philly Bike Action.

Nguyen and her husband, Vasil Cobo, are both bicyclists, drivers and pedestrians in the neighborhood.

“Most people just drive and they kind of take for granted, and don’t realize how intimidating and terrifying it is to be on Castor outside of a car,” she said. “Even in a car, it is scary because of the dangerous maneuvers that people make while they drive.”

The couple said they would appreciate a more walkable business corridor where they could explore different shops without hopping back in their cars. It’s all about curbing rush hour traffic, she said.

“They’re trying to optimize that experience at the cost of these businesses being more accessible to people by more people for longer hours of the day,” Cobo said.

Ideally, the pair would like to bicycle to Pennypack Park someday with dedicated bicycle lanes and ensure students from Northeast High School — which sits on Cottman Avenue — can have a safe bicycle, walking or bus ride to school on the surrounding streets, including Castor Avenue. Castor Avenue is on the city of Philadelphia’s high-injury network, where traffic crashes are more common.

Cobo is a member of Philly Bike Action and said that bicycle lanes are rarely respected, and vehicles frequently block them.

“One of the positive things for us is the reduction in lanes because right now there’s a lot of conflicts when people driving on Castor Avenue want to turn left,” he said. “A lot of times the cycling lanes here in Northeast Philly get treated as just extra parking.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the spelling of names and quote attribution.