After more than 20 years as a botched experiment in urban planning, downtown Chestnut Street will become just another one-way thoroughfare, if Councilman Frank DiCicco has his way. DiCicco’s bill to allow cars to make right turns off of Chestnut between Eighth and Broad marks the end of decades of plans to turn the street first into a pedestrian mall and then a high-speed transit-way for city buses and bicycles. That stretch of Chestnut Street lies within the DiCicco’s district.

Philadelphia urban planners "should have left well enough alone," DiCicco asserted at the Streets and Services Committee hearing, where his bill was unanimously endorsed. The measure is scheduled for a full council vote on Thursday.

The hearings were something of a show trial. DiCicco had been instrumental in arranging a behind-the-scenes deal to overcome a major stumbling block -- that the city had received almost a million dollars from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for the bus lane. If that lane were eliminated, Washington could demand a refund. At the hearing, a coalition of local businesses and institutions, including Jefferson Medical School, announced that they would be willing to raise the money if the feds wanted it back. The coalition said it hopes city and state politicians could convince the FTA that an honest effort had been made to implement the bus plan but that it had failed and must be changed, no refund necessary.

With the money issue off the table, the main point of contention at the hearing was pedestrian safety.

The vice president of pedestrian-advocacy group PhillyWalks, Nancy Lavin, was the only witness to oppose the bill. Figuring the measure would pass despite her objections, Lavin requested longer lights to give people on foot more time to cross and "no right turn on red" signs to keep the traffic predictable. DiCicco agreed to raise the issue with the Streets Department upon the bill's passing.

With the witness list packed with backers of the measure, very little debate took place on the central assumption: that Chestnut Street's high commercial-vacancy rate is solely a result of two decades of bad traffic planning. Center City District President Paul Levy said that, with the changes, Chestnut would become "an eastbound Walnut Street."

Lavin said she thinks individual business owners should bear the brunt of the blame for Chestnut Street's current state. She cites a number of movie theaters that have closed on Chestnut in the past decade. While some would blame it on the failed pedestrian mall and transit-way, Lavin blames the theater operators. With so many senior citizens in the area, Lavin asks, why were the theaters showing so many action movies? The "businesses [were] out of touch with the population," Lavin says. And businesses that fail to serve their customer base generally fail.

Notably missing from the hearing were transit and cycling advocates. Dennis Winters, the transportation programs manager at the Clean Air Council, saw the writing on the wall. Winters says that a transit-way, if done right, with trolleys running in both directions, could usher in a renaissance on Chestnut. As for allowing right turns, Winters isn't holding his breath. "It's already performing the way he [DiCicco] wants it to ... because I've never seen anybody get a ticket for turning right."

DiCicco agrees that a trolley-based system would be desirable, but "SEPTA just can't get it through their heads that it might make sense to do this." As the councilman sees it, "Until we get something different, I think the right-hand turns are going to help."

Bad Medicine

“Is there anyone here to speak on behalf of the administration?” committee chairman David Cohen asked, looking out at a crowded council chamber. No one stepped forward.

If the Law and Government Committee's purpose was to hear all sides of the Philadelphia inmate medical experimentation lawsuit, its hearings were a failure. None of the institutions named in the class-action lawsuit made an appearance, citing the pending litigation. But if the committee's purpose was to bring attention to the lack of concern being shown by the institutions accused of exploiting the former inmates, the point was made.

One after another, former inmates testified before the committee, describing the experiments they took part in while serving time in Philadelphia's prisons between 1949 and 1974. The hearing ended with about a dozen former prisoners taking off shirts and pulling up pants legs to show their injuries to the council members present. Two inmates who took part in toothpaste tests told the committee that all of their teeth had subsequently fallen out.

In addition to the inmates, Dr. Bernard Ackerman, a prominent dermatologist who took part in the experiments as a Penn medical resident in 1966 and who has written extensively on why the experiments were morally wrong, testified on the need for the university to apologize. "What purported to be research ... was little more than a commercial operation" to make money for the university and private chemical corporations, Ackerman said at the hearing.

The former inmates' lawsuit is currently pending on appeal. A federal judge initially threw out the case on grounds that the statute of limitations had expired.

Councilman Michael Nutter criticized the administration for not showing up at the hearings, arguing that even if the statute of limitations protects the city legally, there is "still the issue of whether or not it [the unethical experimentation] happened."

Councilman Cohen said hearings would reconvene in three weeks and again, the administration, the university and the chemical companies would be invited to testify.