Changing Lanes: The Controversial History and Future of Philadelphia’s Vine Street Expressway (I-676)

Monday, August 12 2024

We’ve all too often been stuck in standstill traffic here. The Vine Street Expressway (aka Interstate 676) is a crucial highway artery in Philadelphia, connecting the Schuylkill Expressway (Interstate 76) to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and Interstate 95. Throughout its length, it is a six-lane, sunken highway that splits the city up on none other than the former Vine Street, providing a highway link directly into Center City. Because it's an expressway piercing the heart of Philadelphia, it has an extremely contentious history littered with planning challenges, community opposition, and ongoing debates about its future.

The Vine Street Expressway was conceived in the mid-1900s when the city of Philadelphia, like many American cities, adopted pro-car transportation projects and sought to build a highway that would cut straight through Center City. Planning began in the 1950s, but the project faced a good amount of delays due to funding issues, good ol’ politics, and community resistance—particularly from the bustling hub of Chinatown, where residences, businesses, and community centers were set to be demolished in the name of the six-lane, a non-tax-revenue-generating strip of tarmac. Construction finally began in the late 1960s, slicing neighborhoods like Chinatown straight in half. What’s particularly notable is that the highway’s planners had no regard for the fact that it separated the Holy Redeemer Chinese Catholic Church and School—a primary educational institution—from the rest of the community south of Vine Street. This led to widespread protests and legal battles between community members and the urban planners, as the community feared the highway would disrupt the area's social fabric and worse air and noise pollution—and they were right, as we can still observe these effects today. Despite this, the first section opened in 1980, with the final segment opening in 1991—if only we could build public transit at this rate. 

View of the 10th Street Overpass of the Vine Street Expressway. This is also a proposed location for the "Chinatown Stitched" that would hopefully reconnect the evidently disconnected Chinatown we see.

As Philadelphia continues to evolve and slowly gains its population back, so too do future plans for this urban highway—many of which aim to alleviate the destructive impacts of this highway on its surrounding communities. Right now, one of the most popular proposals is dubbed “The Chinatown Stitch,” which would cap/bridge over a portion of the Vine Street Expressway and replace it with urban greenspace and community grounds. This would hopefully reconnect—literally and figuratively—Chinatown and other neighborhoods divided by the expressway's construction. Supporters of the stitch argue that it would improve air quality, reduce noise pollution, and provide much-needed public space in Center City, but it would require significant financial investment. 

The Vine Street Expressway, while an undoubtedly critical link in Philadelphia’s clogged system of highways, is also a symbol of the city’s history of contentious potentially racially targetted development projects. As we turn to the future, balancing preserving the expressway’s utility and addressing its detriments will present quite a challenge for its planners. Whether through a “stitch” or another god-forsaken lane (that will not help with traffic), the future of the Vine Street Expressway will undoubtedly shape another chapter in Philadelphia’s urban history—hopefully for the better. 

Bibliography 

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“Vine Street Expressway — SEGREGATION BY DESIGN.” SEGREGATION BY DESIGN, www.segregationbydesign.com/philadelphia/vine-street-expressway.

Vine Street Expressway (I-676 and US 30). www.phillyroads.com/roads/vine.

Wolfman-Arent, Avi, and Avi Wolfman-Arent. “How the construction of the Vine Street Expressway uncovered lost Black burial grounds.” Billy Penn at WHYY, 17 Jan. 2023, billypenn.com/2022/05/06/i676-vine-street-expressway-black-burial-grounds-history-philadelphia.

Walton, Chris. “Legacies of the Vine Street Expressway.” ArcGIS StoryMaps, 9 Dec. 2020, storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e447163095c14f419b078dbce5fd9c7f.

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Roche, Daniel Jonas. “Chinatown Stitch, a cap for the Vine Street Expressway, moves forward.” The Architect’s Newspaper, 13 Mar. 2024, www.archpaper.com/2024/03/chinatown-stitch-cap-vine-street-expressway-philadelphia.