October 30: Philly Free Streets | #PhillyMinute: MFL | Kensington Ave Storefront Challenge

A feast on rails and roads, from the ground to the sky, in today’s news:

SEPTA regional rail riders: expect service delays due to felled trees and overhead wires, 6abc reports. The transit authority urges riders to check their service alerts online or on twitter @SEPTA before making the commute.

The second Philly Free Streets successfully missed the weekend’s storms this Saturday. Bastiaan Slabbers, contributing to WHYY News, has some visual treats for your eyes, from a penny-farthing bike to police officers painting a mural with kids. Have shots of your observations and good times? Share them with the Eyes on the Street flickr community. You may even find your picture in a PlanPhilly article some day (this happened, for example, in this very post)!

And from our eyes on the sky, the next Streets Dept + WeFilmPhilly #PhillyMinute video is out. The October drone footage follows the El train from above as it rolls through Kensington. There’s an especially sweet moment near the end of the video when two trains almost kiss at a curve before passing each other by.

More on the topic of regional rail: In August and September this year, SEPTA met its self-imposed goal of a 90 percent on-time rate, PMN reports. A look at recent operations data and interviews with riders, experts, and officials finds that the Fox-Chase and airport lines are consistently on time, while coordinating shared rails with Amtrak continue to remains problematic. Alon Levy analyzed SEPTA’s high-frequency rapid transit potential for PlanPhilly earlier this month. Jim Saksa covered the latest on Norristown High Speed Line extension with SEPTA’s draft Environmental Impact Statement.

Shift Capital is seeking public output to determine the commercial tenants for 14 unused properties in the company’s portfolio, Generocity’s Albert Hong reports. The developer’s Kensington Avenue Storefront Challenge aims to spur economic development in Kensington by matching existing city and local nonprofit services and grant funding with one year’s free rent. You can get a rundown of the properties and submit your idea here.

Form meets function: Inga Saffron looks at the safe and stylish Venetian details of Snellenberg’s former clothing factory on Broad Street.

WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal