Roosevelt Boulevard is one of the Philadelphia region’s most critical yet most challenged corridors. As a fourteen-mile, twelve-lane arterial carrying more than 70,000 vehicles and nearly 14,745 daily bus riders, the Boulevard serves over half a million residents while ranking among the city’s most dangerous roads and most congested routes. PennDOT, SEPTA, and the City of Philadelphia required a data-driven baseline of current demographic, safety, traffic, transit, and economic conditions along the corridor to anchor a Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) study (client team collectively the PEL Working Group), build interagency consensus on a Purpose and Need, and support the screening of multimodal investment alternatives in advance of the National Environmental Policy Act process.
ESI was part of a multidisciplinary team led by HNTB to evaluate the market potential for transit-oriented development (TOD) along the corridor. This assessment included evaluating demographic, real estate, land use, and economic metrics across 20 potential station areas for future transit investments and developing materials in support of a workshop with the PEL Working Group. Through this evaluation five station areas were selected for a more robust market analysis to determine development potential and identify redevelopment sites for TOD, including higher-density residential, commercial, and mixed-use. This analysis included field work, description of neighborhood conditions, real estate market trends within a quarter-mile and half-mile buffer area, land use, demand generators (employers, commercial uses, and resident buying power), and analysis of optimal density based on type of transit investment (fixed-rail vs. bus rapid transit). These findings were incorporated in HNTB’s Existing Conditions Report and development plans for each station area.
While the Existing Conditions Report established the foundation for the PEL study and the selection of a preferred multimodal alternatives, ESI’s market assessment provided a framework for communicating opportunities and barriers to new development and was the basis for providing zoning recommendations for each station area and where incentives may be needed to make development feasible. This project is ongoing with anticipated community engagement in 2026 and 2027.
