City to residents: We will help with security restrictions

Center City residents living at the epicenter of the papal events in September will have help navigating security restrictions, Mayor Nutter said Thursday.

Nutter and Donna Crilley Farrell, executive director of the World Meeting of Families 2015, outlined resources available to residents, including making the city's 311 hotline available 24 hours a day just ahead of the visit. Also, a "papal playbook" will be released, created for residents' questions about transportation, emergency contacts, and event information during the week.

"It's important to say today to the residents that we hear you," Crilley Farrell said. "We recognize there are questions, and with the papal visit playbook, we have aimed to develop and deliver an online product that can easily be updated quickly with information we receive."

The playbook will be on the World Meeting of Families' website, http://www.worldmeeting2015.org/, beginning at noon Monday. It will also be published in The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News about 15 days before the pope arrives.

The city's 311 hotline will switch from 12 hours a day to a 24/7 operation from Sept. 24 to 28.

Pope Francis' visit to Philadelphia on Sept. 26 and 27 will bring a security shutdown of a 4.7-square-mile swath of the city to incoming vehicles. About 97,000 people live in that area, known as "the traffic box."

The traffic box perimeter - to be patrolled by Philadelphia police and blocked by barricades - runs north to Spring Garden Street and Ridge and Girard Avenues; south to South Street; east to the Delaware River; and west to 38th Street.

Beginning at 6 p.m. Friday in Center City and 10 p.m. in West Philadelphia, no cars will be allowed to enter the box. Any resident driving out of it will not be permitted to drive back in.

On Thursday, the city's message for residents was clear: Everything you need is in the box. Nutter displayed a map showing amenities within the box, including 330 convenience or grocery stores, hundreds of places of worship, and five hospitals.

Residents can drive within the box, though Nutter cautioned that streets could be filled with people.

There are no plans for shuttles within the box. Taxis will be permitted until 2 a.m. Saturday and can resume operation at 3 a.m. Monday to help get people to and from the airports. Twenty-seven ADA-accessible taxis will be part of the fleet.

Closest to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and to Independence Hall, a second secure perimeter will involve more intense restrictions like fencing and magnetometers, affecting about 16,400 people who live within those boundaries.

No vehicular traffic is permitted in the secure vehicle perimeter, and all cars must be removed from the area or they will be towed.

Nutter said the city was working with the Parking Authority and private garages to get information out on where residents can store their cars over the weekend.

Residents in that area will get advance notice from the Secret Service on how to move in and out of their residences and whether they, too, will need to be screened, Nutter said. A Secret Service spokesman did not return a request for comment.

Trash and recycling will not be collected Sept. 25 or 28 citywide, but will be picked up on Sept. 24. The city's five trash convenience centers will extend their daily hours from Sept. 24 to Oct. 4 to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

A separate plan for commercial trash pickup will be offered, Nutter said.

Asked a now-familiar question - whether the restrictions will drive away out-of-towners - Nutter said he would "rather be overprepared than underprepared."

More than 100,000 SEPTA passes are still available for pope weekend. Amtrak still has tickets on trains bound for Philadelphia that weekend and there are parking spaces at the Camden waterfront and the stadiums available for buses.

All buses traveling to Philadelphia for the pope's visit must register with GO GROUND, the World Meeting's official bus registration manager, at http://wmof.goground.com/registration, and will be given placards to drive on certain off-ramps and parts of I-676 otherwise closed.

Crilley Farrell said that while she had no way of predicting crowd size, she was not concerned about low turnouts.

"We talk every day to people representing big groups of parishes, universities, and nuns and priests, and families, so, no - but it's very hard to say," she said.

The event is the city's first-ever National Special Security Event. Nutter said the inconveniences to residents ensure the safety of the crowds and the pope, who he noted will be well-protected.

"If anyone thinks that suddenly, somehow, you're going to be able to just walk up and give Pope Francis a high-five, that's probably not going to happen," he said.

Thursday, Sept. 24

Beginning at 10 p.m., SEPTA will operate the following schedules, for which special passes are not required:

Regional Rail lines will operate on a weekend schedule with all stations active except Suburban Station.

The subway and El will operate normally, with all stations active except 15th Street and City Hall.

West Philadelphia trolley lines run as normal, with all stations active except 15th Street.

Saturday, Sept. 26, and Sunday, Sept. 27

SEPTA will adopt an express and limited stop service on Regional Rail, subway and El, and Subway-Surface lines.

Papal passes will be required on Regional Rail, but not on subways and city trolley lines.

Because of the "traffic box," many SEPTA bus routes will be detoured or suspended in the Center City area. Buses on detour will get as close to the boundary as possible to drop passengers off before turning around for service in the other direction.

Other information

SEPTA will sell 100,000 remaining one-day Regional Rail papal passes at Suburban, Jefferson, and outlying stations starting Friday.

Groups and organizations interested in bulk sales can email SEPTA at papalbulkpasses@septa.org.

Source: City of Philadelphia

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