There is an excellent story in today's issue of the Philadelphia City Paper about the Route 15. I had contacted them a couple of weeks ago about doing an article on it but got no reply so I assumed they weren't interested. The bottom line is that Nutter says, "There will be no change of direction on those three blocks of North 59th Street." Maybe the person in Operations Planning that my friend knows is right. Tearing up the street is probably the only option. The web address for this paper is www.citypaper.net in case anyone's unfamiliar with it.
Here is a direct link to the article:
http://citypaper.net/articles/2004-09-30/cb5.shtml