Monday, May 02, 2011

City Announces North-South Bike Lanes and Enforcement Campaign

In front of City Hall this past Friday, Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler announced that Philadelphia will be piloting north-south bike lanes on 10th and 13th Streets. The lane project is coupled to a public education campaign and an unprecedented Center City law enforcement effort targeting dangerous behavior by pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists.

The proposed bike lanes will run on 10th Street from Spring Garden south to Lombard Street, and on 13th Street from South Street north to Spring Garden.

Press were in attendance and reactions to the city's announcement ran the expected gamut:
  • From the Inquirer, the basic information about the press conference and the city's proposal.
  • Jan Ransom at the Daily News offered a balanced view of the proposal.
  • Jeff Cole of Fox 29 News "Kicked it to the Curb"
  • Paragon urban planner Stu Bykofsky denounced the city's proposal in the Daily News on the grounds that, well, that bicyclists...hmmm, we're not really sure what his grounds are. Nevertheless, we have written a Letter to the Editor in response to Stu's screed.
Most importantly, the city announced a public meeting next Tuesday, May 10th from 6:00-7:30 pm at Jefferson University's Alumni Hall (1000 Locust St) to discuss the pilot plan.  We really urge you to attend the meeting and bring a friend.  Heck, organize a bike ride to attend!  It's important that City officials know public support for these lanes is wide and deep.















3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How much more difficult would it be to extend that "pilot" into the actual city, like for example Temple University (about 7 minutes biking) down to Washington Ave.

It just seems like a silly to do knowing that most of those commuters, (meaning they are people who will give you your samples for your experiment), are heavily represented by people who have affiliations with Temple and bikers who want to get to South Philly.

-R

Aaron said...

Seriously - there is a bike lane (supposedly) on Washington avenue. Why not go the extra 5 blocks to connect to it, instead of leaving riders stranded?

Anonymous said...

Attend the community meeting next Tuesday and voice these concerns! The more engaged bicyclists present, the more likely the city will consider further expanding the bike lane network.