Friends of the Rail Park, Center City District, and the City of Philadelphia partnered on the development of the first 1/4 mile section of the park, Phase One, which opened to the public in 2018. Phase One provides a place for community at the intersection of Chinatown and Callowhill neighborhoods. The park is home to over 1,000 native plants, public art installations, and community-led programming centering wellness, culture, and the arts. Future phases of the Rail Park will stretch north on elevated tracks into the East Poplar neighborhood and west below ground towards the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fairmount Park.
| Infrastructure Type | Railway |
| Status | Open / Ongoing |
| Opening | Phase 1: January 2018 |
| Size | 0.3 miles |
| Design Team | Studio Bryan Hanes, Urban Engineers |
| Management | Base landscape services provided by the City of Philadelphia, Department of Parks and Recreation; public safety services provided by Center City District on Phase 1 of the Rail Park; Friends of the Rail Park provides specialized maintenance services, programming, communications, advocacy and fundraising for future phases of the park. |
| Project Leader | Rebecca Cordes Chan |
On a cold Monday morning, Yihua Liu sat on a bench with a friend at the Rail Park. Now a student at Drexel, he’s lived in Chinatown all his life, and he’s noticed the neighborhood changing.
Washington has a consensus: American infrastructure is overdue for capital improvements and maintenance. The most fervent debates on this topic have focused on how much funding should be allocated. But the most important discussion, even when it comes to hard infrastructure (e.g., rail, bridges, roads, and sidewalks), should be about how funding should be spent.
I’ve heard the same refrain from both friends and strangers, over and over, ever since the pandemic hit: “COVID has upended life as I know it. But I’ve found peace along the Detroit Riverfront.”
