Mayor Parker Signs No Stopping Bill

Also Changes Taney Street to LeCount

Mayor Parker signs the no stopping bill.

Philadelphia, Dec. 4: Mayor Cherelle Parker had a busy lunch hour in the Mayor's Reception Room in City Hall. She signed a bill making it illegal to stop a motor vehicle in any bike lane throughout the city, and she signed a bill changing the name of Taney street to LeCount street. 

Council President Kenyatta Johnson was in attendance at the signing ceremony, along with several members of City Council. 

LeCount Street

Roger Taney was chief justice of the United States before the Civil War, and he wrote the infamous Dred Scott decision declaring that blacks are inferior human beings. I have not been able to find anyone who can explain to me why this street was named for Taney in the first place. He seems to have had virtually no connection to Philadelphia.

Caroline LeCount was an early warrior for civil rights, helping her fiance Octavius Valentine Catto to desegregate Philadelphia's streetcars. Catto was shot to death during an election in 1871. LeCount was the first black woman in Philadelphia to pass the teaching exam; later she became principal of a school that, in time, was named after Catto. She retired in 1911. 

No Stopping

The mayor explained the importance of putting the no stopping signs up along the bike lanes on Pine and Spruce at the same time that the planned loadings zones are added to those blocks, noting that otherwise the existing loading traffic would have no place to go. This installation will happen in the spring; the installation of concrete protective barriers will come along later, but I'm confident that it will come. There seemed to be widespread recognition that, while the no stopping signs will significantly cut down on incursions into the bike lanes, those lanes will not actually be safe until the concrete barriers are installed.

I'm prepared to call it a good day.

See also The State of Play on Pine-Spruce; Loading Zones Are the Key.