Papal Occupation

Pope Francis is in Philadelphia and the whole downtown section is more or less occupied by police and soldiers. This shows South Broad Street, nearly empty but all ready for huge crowds. The irritating part of it is that most residents have no interest in the pope, and yet no other, non-Catholic festival was scheduled for the weekend. When the crowd sizes turned out to be far smaller than expected, the extremely expensive preparations had essentially closed down the city center in terms of normal business. 

The near-complete absence of cars gave pedestrians and cyclists plenty of room to realize that cars and popes have seen their day, and that we need neither in our world.


People are talking about having car free days on a regular schedule, so perhaps some unanticipated good will come of this papal occupation. They even closed the Ben Franklin Bridge! See the extra photos.