North Broad, North Philly stations musings...
There are 3 stations: North Philly on the NEC/SEPTA Regional Rail, North Broad on SEPTA Regional Rail (with its beautiful station building), and North Broad on the BSL (with its 4 underused tracks).
They are all drastically underused, but the Broad Street subway is waaaaayyyy under used. It has 4 tracks at this station and can handle another 5,000 or more new residents here easily. And lots of people will be getting on SEPTA RR at North Philly or North Broad for job destinations like U-City and other places in the region, or take Amtrak to New Jersey and New York City. Plenty will walk to jobs or school at Temple Medical too.
Reimagine the area as a transit district (think Arlington, Virginia) with two visual sightlines between the 3 stations, one along Broad Street and another along the Manayunk-Norristown line. It would be a new "place" for Philly.
Create critical mass of people. Upzone for skyscrapers, and have wedding cake-style zoning as you get farther from the corridor and stations. Following the Manayunk-Norristown line from northwest of the North Philly station to southeast of the North Broad station, a distance of less than a mile, there is so much vacant land, poorly used parking lots and low-value commercial/industrial buildings that could be put to better use.
But don't screw it up with car parking. Eliminate car parking in all new buildings or cap parking at 1 space for every 10 apartments at most. Unbundle that parking from the apartment and make it very very expensive to park a car. Best case is to have an auction for residents for the parking spaces every year.
Instead, have all the buildings create large bike rooms adjacent to their lobbies so easy to enter and exit the buildings on a bike, making cycling a top travel mode alongside transit.
Turn North Broad Street from a 7 lane highway into a safe and comfortable street for people outside of cars. Exclusive bus lanes, Protected Bike Lanes and one lane for motorists. Place Indigo bikeshare hubs throughout, with really good on-street bike parking. Put mandatory Uber rideshare dropoff stations on nearby side streets, like at the airport. Ticket for Uber dropoffs elsewhere. (NYC was going to do this for taxis decades ago and backed off -- big mistake.)
Layout the streets so it is easy to walk from the 3 stations, and a person walking or cycling can 'see' all 3 stations clearly the length of the corridor. Consider decking a pedestrianized street over the Norristown-Manayunk line. Make that new street a series of pedestrian plazas with programmed events, outdoor cafes, etc. so it is as popular as the one in Fishtown.
Require storefront (not Big Box) street-level retail on all sides of buildings with low capped square feet of store sizes (so you get a lot of different stores). Make an exception for a grocery store, but still don't have car parking. (NYC grocery stores, even Trader Joe's, don't have any car parking and they do great.) Only have street parking, because you want everyone to either live there or to arrive by transit.
Don't let the apartment buildings become bunkers. So no roof gardens or upstairs lounges allowed. People should recreate on the ground outside. Add well-designed and well-maintained, secure pocket parks. Lots of outdoor cafes. Create a BID like the Center City district with revenue from the building owners.
Voila, you've got a vibrant, walkable, fun neighborhood. The City of Philadelphia gets lots of tax revenue. SEPTA, and Amtrak too, mint guaranteed fare-payers for its trains and buses.