For years, a stretch of the loop road in FDR Park has occasionally been covered by several inches of water, sometimes for days or weeks at a time.
Over the past year, the mini-lake has become such a permanent fixture that the Parks & Recreation department put up a sign directing drivers, cyclists and others to detour through an adjoining parking lot under I-95, next to the FDR Skatepark.
“They actually cut a chunk of the guardrail out to make a new path around the water, which puts everybody right through the skatepark parking lot and out the parking lot entrance,” said Carlos Baiza, a skater who co-founded and helps run the skatepark.
“It causes mass confusion. If we have a busy day and everybody fills up the parking spots, the people that are trying to dodge the puddle, they’re kind of blocked in. Arguments start. It’s not a good thing,” he said.
In addition, after years of water erosion and car travel, that secondary route is heavily pitted with potholes. Many motorists skip the detour, choosing to plow through the deep puddle on the main road.
The city is part way through a controversial, $250 million makeover of the beloved South Philly park — in part to address frequent climate change-related flooding after storms — but the work hasn’t addressed the water in the road, and a fix doesn’t appear to be part of the multi-year plan.
Instead, the state Department of Transportation, PennDOT, is trying to figure out a solution as part of its long-term project to rehabilitate the adjoining section of I-95, which towers over the edge of the park.
The road is city property, but the state agency has gotten involved because the flooding is blamed largely on untreated stormwater that flows down from the highway, across the skatepark lot, and down into the street.
Friends of FDR Park, a community group that runs programs at the park, has been pushing the city and PennDOT to do something about the constant flooding, but so far to no avail, co-chair Barbara Capozzi said.
“The Friends have complained bitterly, bitterly, bitterly, in writing, in person, to their face. They’re very slow to act,” she said. “Enough already. If I was running the place, it would be pristine. It’s very, very frustrating.”
Nature and scope of repairs still unknown
The Fairmount Park Conservancy, the nonprofit hired by the city to lead the FDR Park renovation project, declined to answer questions about flooding on the loop road, referring questions to PennDOT and Parks & Rec.
PennDOT spokesperson Krys Johnson said the state agency “is aware of the drainage concern and is working with the city to identify solutions.” Once those are figured out, they would be incorporated into the Girard Point Bridge Improvement Project, a $367 million rehabilitation planned for the bridge and other structures that make up I-95 between Broad Street and Enterprise Avenue.
The fix would be part of the project’s first phase, which PennDOT is planning to put out for bids by construction firms later this year, Johnson said. The work hasn’t been scheduled, but could begin sometime in 2026, according to the project website.
Capozzi expressed skepticism that PennDOT would address the road flooding any time soon, saying she feared it could take until as late as 2035 for the work to be completed.
Planners have for years remarked on the highway’s impact on the park environment. In 2021, the city’s FDR Park Plan noted that runoff of untreated stormwater from I-95 produces a “constant flow of water over the road surface [which] is the main cause of the multitude of potholes along the park road that cause so much trouble today.”
Water also flows in from Broad Street and areas north of Pattison Avenue, both damaging the park’s infrastructure and harming water quality in its lakes and creeks, the plan says.
An old drainage system collects water from the highway, the loop road and the park generally. PennDOT is investigating the system’s capacity and looking into potential modifications to “improve its capacity,” Johnson said.
“We will collaborate with the city to determine the scope of the drainage improvements,” she said.
“Everything’s just sunk”
Philadelphia’s perennially underfunded Parks Department has at times struggled to maintain the loop road.
The one-way route provides the only way for drivers to reach ballfields, picnic areas and other amenities in the eastern half of the park, as well as much of the site’s parking, and it gets heavy use when good-weather days and weekends attract thousands of visitors.
Several years ago, unaddressed erosion and wear created potholes that regularly caused serious damage to cars. Baiza and other skaters eventually started soliciting donations from visitors and, with help from the Friends group, bought cement to patch up its many potholes themselves. The city eventually stepped in, fully repaving the road and painting in a bike lane in 2020.
Baiza said he’s familiar with the argument that the road remains constantly flooded because of I-95 runoff. He’s concerned that PennDOT’s project to rehabilitate the highway supports and fix the drainage flow could endanger the skatepark, which the skaters themselves have painstakingly built by hand since the mid-1990s.
But FDR Park is also tidal wetland that lies slightly below sea level, and Baiza thinks land subsidence has contributed to the road being more or less permanently flooded.
“I believe that everything’s just sunk, and the top of the pothole water is the same level as the top of the lakes,” he said. “The road’s lower than what it used to be, or the water is rising. I think that’s the issue. Everybody says it’s a clogged pipe, it’s this, it’s that. I believe that’s just the water table level.”
Tide gates and tree clearing
As climate change leads to heavier storms and a wetter environment, the city is trying to climate-proof the park by excavating in its center to create moisture-absorbing wetlands. It’s using the soil to elevate land along the park’s perimeter for playing fields, playgrounds and other features.
The city has also replacing a failed old tide gate, installing two new gates that connect the wetland with the neighboring Naval Reserve Basin and drain the park when water levels rise. However, Parks & Rec spokeswoman Ra’Chelle Rogers said that work was not designed to address the road flooding.
“This flooding is separate from the conditions addressed by the new tide gate project, which continues to improve drainage in other parts of the park. Areas that previously held water after moderate rain, including paths, playing fields and the market, now remain dry,” she said.
The city’s renovation of FDR Park plan has faced heavy criticism from residents opposed to the cutting down of hundreds of trees in an area known as the Meadows, and to plans to construct athletic fields, a playground and other new features on what had been an expanse of natural growth and trails.
A court ruled last year against residents who sued to stop the tree clearing, allowing the Fairmount Park Conservancy to move ahead with the work. Beginning next year, the conservancy plans to plant over 1,000 saplings in the park’s northwest corner to eventually replace the lost trees.
Supporters of the larger renovation say it will provide young people with more badly needed sports fields, and the city has defended the regrading and wetland creation as needed to solve the park’s chronic flooding.
