The Traffic at J'aime

Why Do We Think Cars Rule?

The view from J'aime.

The intersection of 17th and Pine brings together several of the many strands that make up Philadelphia. On the northwest corner there is a shop that repairs violins; just next to it is a shop that frames pictures. On the southwest corner is a residential building. On the northeast corner is a large parking lot. And on the southeast corner is a relatively new coffee shop that also serves amazing pastries. Its name is J'aime, and I enjoy sitting with a coffee at one of the outside tables and watching the world go by.

Past those four corners flow three threads of traffic: people ride in cars and trucks; they ride on bikes and scooters; and they walk. I was particularly struck by the number of people walking on Pine, which on this stretch is an overwhelmingly residential street - not a lot of stores to attract foot traffic.

When we moved here from Manhattan in 1979, my wife and I were astonished by the lack of foot traffic on the sidewalks in Center City. Well, no more. 

However, there's no doubt that motor vehicles dominate my visual field at ground level. They're big, of course - Americans do love their SUVs and their pickup trucks, and every year they seem to get bigger and taller. Beyond a suspected epidemic of elephantiasis, there are simply a lot of them. Even in the middle of the day, when the number of cars moving on the street can be very light, there are always the parked cars, and they generally fill not just the parking lot but also the parking lane. You simply can't get away from them. 

This surfeit of mechanical eye candy leaves me looking for some relief, and I do find myself gazing up toward the sky with some regularity, which is where the photo at the beginning of this story came from.

By contrast, bikes and walkers tend to underoccupy the visual space. They're relatively small; they're also quiet, and they don't smell of burned and unburned fuel. Bikes in particular have a habit of hiding in plain sight. Coming at you, they almost disappear, and viewed from the side they pull the same trick. (For more on the ways that bikes tend not to impose themselves on us, click here.) 

This imbalance of visual weight led me to question the sway cars hold over the street. Might it at least partially be bluster? I found myself wondering about the actual balance among the three threads at this little crossroads overseen by a small cafe.

Recently I studied the traffic on the South Street bridge, focusing on the eastbound rush during the afternoon, and came to the surprising conclusion that cars were probably in the minority. So I decided to count again.

Oops. Motor vehicles on Pine are in the majority during the afternoon rush. Would you care to guess their margin of victory? It was 6 percentage points. Cars and trucks were 53 percent of the traffic, and bikes, scooters, and pedestrians made up 47 percent. I bet you thought cars were winning by a bigger margin.

I'd been hoping for cars to be in the minority again, but there you have it.

The Count

I did my count on the afternoon of Thursday, November 9, from 4:30 to 5:30 pm. I counted 184 bicycles, 18 scooters (including 2 people on skateboards and 1 person on inline skates), and 194 pedestrians. For a total of 396. Cars and trucks totaled 443.

I was interested in traffic that was using Pine street. I excluded traffic that came into the intersection from 17th street and left on 17th street. Anything turning from Pine onto 17th or from 17th onto Pine got counted. 

At least that was the plan. I'm pretty sure I undercounted the pedestrians. Daylight saving time had ended the previous Sunday, November 5, but I failed to include a sunset at 4:49 pm in my rather impromptu plans. Pedestrians are small, and they don't have headlights. I don't think I'll be scheduling any more nighttime traffic counts.

Also, my view of the northern sidewalk was intermittent because of the intervening motor-vehicle traffic.

However, I didn't miss 47 pedestrians, so I do think motor vehicles are in the majority here. But I don't think they rule. Sane politicians pay attention to 47 percent minorities. 

Improvement Opportunities

And indeed the City has made a number of improvements here designed to make life safer for people who aren't riding around encased in two tons of metal. A few years ago the bike lane was moved from the right side of the street to the left, making it easier for a driver to see bikes in the lane. The Pine and Spruce lanes have also received a number of flex posts near intersections, and at strategic points the asphalt surface of the lane has been painted green.

These bike lanes were originally installed on the right side of the street, removing one of the two lanes  that had been devoted to motor-vehicle traffic, and thereby removing the abrupt lane changes from one car lane to another that can be so heart-stoppingly dangerous on streets with two lanes of motor-vehicle traffic. (The lanes were originally installed as a pilot in 2009 and updated to their current look in 2019, after the 2017 death of cyclist Emily Fredricks.)

There are still a bunch of ways to make things better on this street. More flex posts and better enforcement of the bike lane would be excellent.

And the sidewalks. Philly's sidewalks are legendary for their poor condition, and I can testify from personal experience that the irregularities in the pavement are frequently very hard to see at night. It's true that maintaining sidewalks is the responsibility of the property owner, but since that is not working well, it seems appropriate for the government see what it can do to help make things better. (For an interesting set of ideas from parking guru Donald Shoup, click here. Philadelphia has already settled a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act that focused on sidewalk curb ramps.)

But, as I've been saying for years, I think the main improvement opportunity lies in the parking lane. The problem is convincing motorists, and their elected leaders, that they should share the lane. 

The arrival of streeteries - dining shelters located in the parking lane - was the first large-scale demonstration that there were alternative uses for the parking lane. But transportation planners have known since the beginning of cars that free parking is an astonishingly inefficient use of scarce curbside space. 

In many of the more crowded parts of Philadelphia, it is possible for residents to purchase residential parking permits for $35 a year. This is the functional equivalent of free.

Economists like to talk about opportunity costs. At the corner by J'aime, if a resident is not parked in a spot, someone else can park there and pay the meter. Or the City could make some loading zones. There are a few in this neighborhood, but not nearly enough. Which of these uses are more valuable, and to whom? I think those are interesting questions.

For many years, the pressure on the City was to expand curbside parking. And the City accommodated motorists. Back then, the conventional wisdom was that everybody either owns a car or wants one, and I think the City just assumed the expansions would be universally popular. 

Some of the things the City did actually violate state law. There are many examples of parking zones extending to the crosswalk, when the state requires a substantial setback to preserve sight lines. Now there is a move to "daylight" these intersections, so that everybody has a few more precious seconds to react to a dangerous situation that may be developing. 

Beyond all that, I find it frustrating that motorists expect to park for free. They pay the dealer for the car and the insurance company for insurance. They pay for registration, inspections, and a driver's license. They pay for oil and gas and maintenance. They pay tolls on bridges, tunnels, and fast roads. These are considered costs of ownership. But parking should be free.

So we're capitalists down to the last drop of window-washing fluid, but then all of a sudden the government owes us a free parking spot. The chalk makes a funny sound when I try to write that on the blackboard.

See also Barnacles at the Curb, What We Lost, Flex Posts on Pine and Spruce, Cars and Bikes - the Back Story,  Quo Vadis, Philadelphia?