The DVRPC is scheduling a meeting of its technical committee to go over data from PennDOT and the city before bringing the funding proposal back up for discussion at its next meeting.
“DVRPC will continue to convene our partners, including the City of Philadelphia and the suburban counties, on next steps for funding the Chinatown Stitch,” said Executive Director Ariella Maron in a statement.
Chin said there is still strong moral and political support from the city for the project.
“Everybody sees the vision as a very impactful, powerful change to this area,” he said. “Everybody that’s been involved with the design and planning of this project feels very confident that, eventually, this gets built. The question is really the schedule and the timeline.”
Lauren Lowe, a solidarity movement organizer with nonprofit Asian Americans United, said her father was involved in protests against the Vine Street Expressway.
“No matter what ZIP code I live in, [Chinatown] has been home for a long time,” she said. “I kind of grew up with that specter of the Vine Street Expressway fight, and it was one of the first things that I learned about in terms of Chinatown’s history of resistance.”
That fight loomed so large in Lowe’s memory of Chinatown history that she said she didn’t think she would see the neighborhood reunited in her lifetime.
“To feel like there’s a proposal that’s actually coming from within the community … and to heal that openness, that chasm that separates Chinatown North and Callowhill from Chinatown’s core, that felt really positive,” she said. “It was equally disappointing when the funding was revoked.”
Even without construction funding secured, the work to reconnect Chinatown continues. Puchalsky said that the project’s environmental documentation — which, according to PennDOT’s environmental policy, needs to be approved before the final design stage can begin — is ready and should be submitted this spring.
As for new funding, Congressman Brendan Boyle, D-Philadelphia, introduced federal legislation in December that, if passed, would reverse part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” restoring the money for the Stitch project and other similar projects around the country.
“We’re not giving up. We’re not quitting,” he said in a release at the time. “I feel confident we have a very good plan B, and we’re going to keep working at it until we are here celebrating in a few years.”
Chin said that $10 million from the DVRPC proposal would push the project to construction readiness and cover part of the construction plan.
“The Chinatown Stitch is the ultimate big final project that realizes the vision” to heal and reconnect Chinatown, he said.