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At the traffic-choked eastern end of Washington Avenue, a project meant to turn the road into a more welcoming path to the Delaware River waterfront is nearing completion.
The $9.5 million project has so far created a wide sidewalk and raised asphalt bike path on the street’s south side from 4th Street to Columbus Boulevard, with more than 60 new trees and other plantings, and new benches, bike racks and trash cans.
New curbs are being built with widened “bumpout” areas at intersections to make for shortened pedestrian crossings, and four new median islands in the middle of Washington Avenue will be installed.
Crews were out on the street last week laying down asphalt and pouring concrete, slowing traffic as drivers maneuvered around workers and construction equipment. The project, which launched in April 2025 and had been expected to finish this spring, is now on schedule for completion later this month, according to the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation.
Other elements include a parking-protected westbound bike line on the north side of the street, and improved lighting and traffic signals. Slip lanes along Jefferson Square Park and under I-95 have been removed to make way for the wider sidewalk and trail.
At the east end of the new path, users can cross Columbus Boulevard to access the Delaware River Trail that heads north along the road, or continue on a path to reach the river’s edge and the southbound trail.
“From a pedestrian and bicycle network standpoint, the connection for South Philadelphians in particular to get to the Delaware River Trail is going to be huge for this,” said Elizabeth Woods, a senior vice president at DRWC. “Combined with some of the improvements that the city has done west of 4th Street, this will make a really important connection for those uses.”
Overcoming physical and psychological barriers
The work is part of a decades-long effort to transform the formerly industrial waterfront into more of a recreational and residential area. Previous projects include creation of the Delaware River Trail and Spruce Street Harbor Park, and the rehabilitation of the Washington Avenue, Cherry Street and Race Street piers.
PennDOT is also building a cap over I-95 where the future Park at Penn’s Landing will eventually be built, and it plans to erect the South Street Pedestrian Bridge over Columbus Boulevard next year, further improving access.
All of the DRWC projects come out of the Master Plan for the Central Delaware, which was finalized in 2012 with the goal of greening a long stretch of the waterfront and opening it up for more public uses.
The plan called for creating parks every half mile, connecting them with a north-south trail, and improving access to the area from neighborhoods to the west, Woods said.
“One of the major findings of the master plan was that I-95, and to an almost equal extent Columbus Boulevard, present both physical and psychological barriers to getting to and from the waterfront,” she said.
The DRWC’s “connector street” program aims to improve bike and pedestrian access across those barriers and make landscape and lighting improvements, particularly in places where I-95 overpasses are low and create dim, “inhospitable” areas, Woods said.
Neighbors praise safety benefits
The first connector project was completed on Race Street in 2011, at around the same time as the Race Street Pier. Others are on Spring Garden Street in Northern Liberties and Columbia Avenue in Fishtown.
When planning began for the Washington Avenue connector in 2018, the city asked DWRC to extend the improvements as far west as 4th Street, making it the largest of the projects.
DWRC handled design and community engagement and raised about $3.5 million, while the city obtained the rest of the funding and hired contractors, Woods said. A possible future phase of the project could include decorative lighting in the underpass, as was done on Spring Garden Street in 2016, Woods said.
Community reaction to the project appears to be mostly positive, with many residents on social media saying they’re looking forward to its completion.
Pat Fitzmaurice, president of the Pennsport Civic Association, which held several public meetings with DRWC to offer suggestions for the project, said the final design brought numerous benefits.
They include “eliminating places to dump your car under 95, making a pedestrian and bicycle path that people can actually utilize, adding green spaces, adding improved lighting along Washington Avenue, and not detrimentally impacting the flow of traffic, which was one of the big critiques with the Washington Avenue construction from 4th Street west,” he said. “I think this project came along very well.”
Fitzmaurice praised DRWC for accepting residents’ request for a new turn signal at Front Street, which he said should make the intersection safer. He said many drivers who come off I-95 and down Columbus turn there to enter Pennsport. The corner was the site of a fatal crash in January 2025, when a SEPTA bus struck and killed a man who was trying to cross the street.
Laments for lost parking
There have also been complaints about the project, including some about how long it’s taken to finish, but largely about parking.
As with many road and development projects in Philadelphia, some residents lament the loss of several parking spaces on the former slip lane by Jefferson Square Park, and near corners where pedestrian bumpouts are being installed.
“I love the trees,” resident Carrie Borgenicht wrote on Facebook last week. “I am struggling with how much tougher parking has become. …My livelihood depends on my vehicle, and the parking loss is very real.”
While residents at meetings recognized the inconvenience of losing some on-street spaces, the benefits for safety, accessibility and attractiveness of the streetscape “seemed pretty clear,” Woods said.
“Everyone agreed that the existing conditions of Washington Avenue were not good,” she said. “It was a very wide thoroughfare with a lot of excess capacity that led to a real sense of division between neighborhoods, and between neighborhoods and the waterfront, and the solution that we came up with through all of that community input balanced those needs.”
Fitzmaurice said residents hope to see DRWC and the city make additional improvements in the future.
Those could include reversing the direction of a remaining segment of slip lane on Washington from Front and Columbus, which drivers in the past have used as a shortcut to the boulevard, he said. That area is being used as a construction staging area but will reopen when the work is done.
DRWC’s next connector street project is a planned path on a section of Cumberland Street near the Northbank housing development, to make it easier for residents in Olde Richmond and Fishtown to get to the Delaware River Trail and a potential future Graffiti Pier park. A community meeting on the plan took place Wednesday.
