The Troglodytes Showed Up

And, as Usual, They Had Nothing

Third street felt a lot like 11th street. That's not a compliment.

I've been to quite a few community meetings about bike lanes. The most recent, on Thursday, March 6, was held at the Old Pine Community Center at 401 Lombard street, between 6 and 7:30 pm. The topic was a bike lane running north on Third from South to Market, connecting with the east-west bike lanes on Pine and Spruce and also with the new bike lanes that will appear as part of the current reconstruction of Market street in Old City. This lane will improve bike travel for people who live in South Philly, or near the lane, and wish to travel on the Pine-Spruce bike lanes or any of the lanes heading further north. 

This is basically a no-brainer. I call it the genius of the one-lane street. Adding the bike lane will slim the overwide space for motor vehicles down to one lane and in the process substantially slim the exposed crossing for pedestrians. Opportunities for mayhem will be greatly reduced. This is good for motorists and pedestrians as well as  bicyclists.

A few years ago, there were several meetings about the 11th street bike lane. (See They Threw Rocks at Mayor Dilworth, Don't Tell Me That Peace Has Broken Out!) They were just like the Third street meeting: the people had slept late, and when they woke up they discovered a new world aborning, and they hated it.  And so we all got to sit through yet another remedial class.

By and large, these people never change their minds. Except there was one man on 11th street who did change his mind, and became a supporter of the bike lane.  Because he was a prominent businessman in the community, his shift did help a lot.

I'm not expecting that to happen on Third.

Anyway the 11th street lane - a two-way cycle track - did go in, it works just fine, and the surrounding neighborhood is doing just fine, thank you.

But the people on Third have probably never heard of the lane on 11th. It's remarkable how insular these pockets of opposition can be. Sometimes residents' opinion seems to depend on which side of the street they live on. We've certainly seen that on the 2100 block of Pine, where all the ringleaders of the opposition live on the north side of the street, next to the bike lane, which they are very fond of parking in.

I was a little tired when I got to the Third street meeting, which started at 6 pm. March 6 was a busy day for me. In the morning, I'd gone to City Hall for a City Council meeting, where three bike lane bills, along with many other bills, were up for final consideration. There was an extended public comment session before the votes were taken, with people commenting on various bills in a seemingly random order - I think people may have been called in the order in which they signed up to speak.

I confess my attention began to wander, and I was actually reading about Ukraine on my phone when a lady began to speak. For some reason I thought she was going to talk about bike lanes, but instead she started saying how happy she was with the louche circus currently playing in Washington. In addition, she thought that all the Democrats were corrupt criminals and suggested they should be locked up. She also seemed to despise immigrants. The City is attempting to find ways to help immigrants, particularly by educating them about their legal rights, so she may have been commenting on that effort. 

As the speaker finished and turned from the lectern, there was a beat of total silence. And then there was a loud, sustained chorus of boos. And then on to the next speaker.

Eventually we got to the voting. The three bike bills were for bike lanes on 13th, 22nd, and 23rd and were intended to improve Center City's connections to Temple University (bill #250006), the Fairmount neighborhood (bill #250005), and the Schuylkill Banks (bill # #250007). They all passed unanimously.

City Council approved the Third street bike lane quite some time ago (the mayor signed the bill - # 240670 - on October 22, 2024),  and the March 6 meeting was essentially a familiarization tour for the people who had just woken up. 

I find this late arrival thing annoying, but it almost always happens. Last October 15, in a last-ditch attempt to kill yet another bike lane bill, the Forces of Darkness even trotted out an actual dinosaur, former Daily News opinionist Stu Bykofsky. Here's a picture of him telling City Council's streets committee what to do. At least he didn't breathe fire.

Actually, he'd have to be a dragon to breathe fire. Stu Bykofsky is not a dragon. The bill passed out of committee unanimously and a few days later was approved by the full Council.

See also The State of Play on Pine-Spruce, Mayor Parker Signs No Parking Bill, Sweeping the Bike Lane, Defense Doesn't Win Wars, Living with Bikes.