Filed under: Uncategorized
[THE PENNSYLVANIA TROLLEY LINES CENTERING ON PHILADELPHIA]
Much has been said recently of the importance of Philadelphia’s infrastructural “bones” in weathering an economic crisis that has wrought havoc on newer auto-centric urban agglomerations of the last half century that have known only low gas prices, easy access to water, ample highways and debt driven growth.
That our density and a well developed transit system serves as a buffer on consumer expenses was not lost on planners of the early part of the 20th century who looked at an even more elaborate trolley system as the salvation to high food prices. In this interesting and recently digitized document from 1912 entitled, A Study of Trolley Light Freight Service and Philadelphia Markets, the Wharton analyst Clyde Lyndon King suggests the greater utilization of the region’s interurban trolley network in shipping foodstuffs from the hinterland to Philadelphia. Admitting that average Philadelphians spent nearly 40-50 percent of their income on food, King argues that by connecting farmers to a developed network of city markets and better regulation of those markets (like that at 1810 Ridge Avenue), customers would see an appreciable decline in the cost of their produce. Reductions in freight charges and eliminating middlemen and wholesalers would assure “food secured as cheaply as possible.”
[MAP OF FARMERS MARKETS IN 1912]
Much too has been written about the decline of Philadelphia’s food infrastructure and its influence on public health. The curious paradox, it seems, is that it may have been easier to access fresh foods in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods in 1912 than it is today. Part of this has to do with the way poverty, neighborhood retail trends, food costs, and processed food technology have colluded to create an urban nutritional wasteland. So while we no longer conceive of the problem of moving fresh food to urban markets in purely dollars and cents, planning bodies like DVRPC are rediscovering the means of better connecting the city to more national and international food flows. But while we seek access to national and global food sources, wouldn’t it be the consummate ‘green’ idea to reconnect our food supply network to the good bones of our transit system? Though SEPTA and PATCO are avowedly in the people moving business, think about the prospect of light freight cars attached to existing regional rail cars? Or special light freight sections of cars? Users would pay a freight surcharge and be able to move fresh produce from special depots in Delaware County (Wawa extension?), Montco (Hatfield), and Chester Counties (Mushroom express)? Sure we’ve got good bones but it’s time to start moving them in ways they’ve never moved before.
[RIDGE AVENUE FARMERS MARKET, 1810 RIDGE AVE. HABS]
[1810 RIDGE AVE., 2009]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: environmental, marcellus shale, natural gas, technology, the rage of nature
[GOOGLE MAP OF ACTIVE/PLUGGED WELLS IN NORTHEAST PA AND NEW YORK STATE]
In the last couple years or so, the natural gas industry has approached northeast Pennsylvania landholders with properties atop the great undulating belts of the Marcellus Shale geological formation, asking for mineral rights access to the vast sea of gas that lay beneath it. In what some have called a “modern-day gold rush”, companies are offering seemingly sweet deals to landowners in Pennsylvania and New York in order to expand the port owners have signed over long-term access rights to their properties to allow what gas companies refer to as a minimally invasive exploratory drilling. If geoscientists determine that gas of good quality and content is accessible, the firm engaged will pay the owner for a portion of the extracted gas and will construct a connection to the national system of natural gas pipelines.
[NATURAL GAS NATIONAL PIPELINE SYSTEM]
It’s the process of extraction that folks like Josh Fox concerned. Fox, originally of Milanville, PA has chronicled the public health, social, and environmental hazards of natural gas drilling in his documentary The Rage of Nature, Specifically, the film raises alarm over the standard practice of hydraulic fracturing: “like hitting the side of a soda bottle, the gas just flows to the top” except the “hitting” involves injecting over 247 chemical mixed with water 1000′ feet into the earth. Many if not all of these chemicals are carcinogenic, endocrine disruptors, mutagens, or disrupt other bodily functions. Each time a well is “fracked” 1-5 million gallons of water is needed. While sometimes the water table is below the deposit being “fracked” sometimes it is not and the fracturing solution or gas can make its way into the water table and individual wells. In some places in Pennsylvania it already has. And natural gas companies are trying to deflect the growing doubts. While thousands of wells have been drilled in the sparsely populated west, natural gas companies are looking to expand their output by moving east into the Marcellus Shale region–perhaps the largest untapped district of natural gas in the country. They propose 50,000 gas wells along a 75 mile stretch of the Delaware River. Of course we don’t need to be told what’s downstream of the Delaware.
[MARCELLUS SHALE DEPOSIT]
