Philadelphia's Pedestrian/Bicycle Plan is Complete!

On June 12th, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission formally adopted the City's final Pedestrian/Bicycle Plan. Completed in two phases over four years (2008 feels sooooo long ago!), the final plan lays out recommendations for new policies, an updated bicycle network, a new pedestrian network, and street types and sidewalk design standards. It updates the City's Bicycle Network Plan, completed in 2000. You can read more about the work leading up to the plan and links to final documents here.

Below are some highlights from the plan:



The plan sets out a vision and five goals for a ped/bike friendly city, including reducing fatalities and injuries by 50% by 2020, increasing the bike commuting mode share to 6.5% by 2020 (it's currently at 2.1%), and filling in gaps in the sidewalk and bicycle lane networks. It presents lots of information on existing conditions of streets and sidewalks, crashes, and biking and walking "demand." Tables 12-14 set out a long list of policy recommendations on such issues as treatments at intersections, bike parking, bikes on transit, enforcement, detours and many more.

Chapter 7 has thirteen map panels of proposed on-street bike facilities, such as bike lanes, sharrows etc. All together, the plan proposes that the City add nearly 130 miles of new bike lanes to the city's bike network, plus many more miles of marked shared lanes (lanes with sharrows), bicycle friendly streets, sidepaths and more.

Existing distances in miles, and additional recommended miles.
Source: Philadelphia City Planning Commission (above chart is not in the report)

Lastly, Appendix E goes into more detail on the City's current thinking on how to improve 20 complicated locations such as Eakins Oval, Chestnut and Walnut Street, Washington Avenue, Gray's Ferry Bridge, and the approach to Ben Franklin Bridge. We are delighted that some of the Bicycle Coalition's recommendations (for Walnut/Chestnut, Gray's Ferry Bridge and the 5th Street approach to the BF Bridge) are included. Congratulations to Debby Schaaf and Jeannette Brugger and the rest of the PCPC staff for a job well done in seeing this plan from start to finish! We're glad it is completed and the City can now move on to implementation!