A Glimpse of the Future of Biking Along the Delaware Opened Yesterday

Philadelphia's first on-street, separated bicycle and pedestrian path received its official ribbon cutting yesterday morning. The quarter-mile Penn Street Trail runs from the intersection of Spring Garden and Delaware Ave north to Sugarhouse Casino.

The trail, featuring freshly-poured asphalt, new rain gardens for sewer management, fresh landscaping and lighting, seating and bike racks, is a pleasant respite from biking north along Delaware Ave. The trail will soon connect to a trail that goes around Sugarhouse Casino and take runners, bikers, and walkers to the recently-completed Penn Treaty Park trail.

Looking north along the trail from the Delaware & Penn Street intersection. 

Perhaps more significantly, this trail is a preview of what the Nutter Administration and the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation plan will someday be a longer trail stretching up and down Philadelphia's shoreline on the Delaware River. That 5-mile trail will slalom between the Columbus/Delaware roadway and the river's edge itself, depending on logistics of the spaces it traverses.

This section serves triple duty as part of longer trail systems. In addition to being a piece of the future Delaware River Trail, it is part of The Circuit (our regional trail system) and part of the East Coast Greenway, a trail which stretches from Maine to Florida.

Click here for more photos of the event from our Facebook page.

Click here to learn more about how this trail fits into The Circuit trail system.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, PlanPhilly, and Be Well Philly all covered the ribbon cutting.