Ben Franklin Parkway Bike Lane Status Update

Outer roadway b/w 21st and 22nd

Outer roadway b/w 20th and 21st

 As many have noticed, the Ben Franklin Parkway bike lanes are undergoing change.  The Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) has had a construction project underway over the few months between 21st Street and Eakins Oval.

The curb line and sidewalks on either side of the Parkway and in the medians were made larger to provide more room for pedestrians to cross the Parkway.  The "cartway" (all of the travel lanes) was narrowed to provide more space for widening the sidewalks.  Parking is being moved over to the left hand lane of the outer roadways.   The bike lanes, which had been in the inner roadways, were moved over to the outer roadways.  This is why it looked like they "dissapeared" during the repaving.  They were marked with stencils this week.

DPR had originally planned to do this kind of work b/w 21st and Eakins Oval only, but through more funding being made available by the city's Commerce Department, is now able to extend the project to the 2000 block of the Parkway (between 21st and 20th).  They marked out a bike lane on the outer roadway, but that the lane on that block won't be opened and parking won't be shifted until the reconstruction of that block is finished (estimated around Labor Day).

Once all of this work is completed, the bike lanes will be on the right hand curb of entire length of the outer roadways and vehicle parking will be on the left of the outer roadways.  Until then, you can either use the inner roadway bike lanes between 20th and 21st and shift over to the outer roadways at 21st, or share the road in the outer road way for one block until the bike lane appears at 21st. 


Happy 4th and safe riding!