Is It a Park, or Is It a Traffic Sewer?

Arm-Wrestling Over MLK Drive

The Philadelphia Art Commission had a hearing yesterday on the planned reconstruction of the MLK Drive bridge, which is near the Art Museum at the beginning of Martin Luther King Drive. And the Commission basically told the Streets Department to go back to the drawing boards. 

This was the Streets Department's second appearance before the Art Commission on this project. Streets has designed a sidepath that, at the first hearing, was ten feet wide. At the second hearing, it was 10.5 feet wide. This is for a two-way path for both bicyclists and pedestrians. The current bridge design still reflects the existing three lanes for motor-vehicle traffic - one bound upriver, and two inbound, heading towards the Eakins Oval in front of the Art Museum.

There have been proposals for nearly a decade to remove that second inbound lane, and at the hearing Streets conceded that they might well drop a lane after further study. But they asked for approval of the 10.5 foot sidepath. 

The Art Commission did not do that. Instead it approved  the basic design for widening the bridge deck, and told Streets to come back with a new design that paid more attention to the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists.

This is a big win for pedestrians and bicyclists. As you probably know, MLK has been closed to motor vehicles during the pandemic, and usage of the space by pedestrians and bicyclists has skyrocketed during that time. There has been concern for a while that the City was planning to revert to the status quo ante when the pandemic went away, and it appears that those concerns are justified.

There are further proposals for more space devoted to bikes and peds along the full length of MLK Drive, up to the Falls Bridge, but they were not part of yesterday's proposal, which focused solely on the bridge.

Here's a story the Bicycle Coalition posted on yesterday's hearing.

And here's a story I wrote in 2017 that gives more background on the design history for MLK Drive.

See also My Life in Fairmount Park.