South Street Will Be a Happier Place
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| The foot of the South street bridge. |
Recently the City reversed the direction of LeCount street between South street and Bainbridge. This block of LeCount is a little, narrow street; it is just one block from the foot of the South street bridge.
The flow on this block of LeCount had been southbound, and the traffic had become increasingly problematic: Motorists who had just come off the bridge were looking for a way to flee the traffic congestion on South street and were turning abruptly right from South onto LeCount, endangering, in their recklessness, the bicyclists and scooter riders in the bike lane there and also the pedestrians in the crosswalk.
Both the bike lane and the sidewalks here are heavily utilized, particularly at the morning and evening rush hours. I infer, from the number of people in scrubs and others with their ID tags around their necks, that the core of this traffic is going to and from the medical city that lies on the other side of the bridge.
So the flow on the block of LeCount between South and Bainbridge now runs from south to north, and there are no motorists making abrupt right-hand turns from South onto LeCount. (Who am I kidding? This is Philadelphia.)
However, I do think there is a danger that we have not made this problem go away, but have simply moved it two blocks east to Bambrey. I'm very hopeful that the city will soon reverse the course of Bambrey street, which lies just the other side of 26th street and currently runs north to south; 26th street here has been running south to north for a long time.
When I first heard that drivers on South street had decided to turn LeCount street into a lane in a bowling alley, I was surprised. There's an easier and less dangerous way to get to Bainbridge, and it gets you off South street a block earlier than LeCount. And it's simple: at the foot of the bridge, turn right. I know it's a hairpin turn, but be calm: It takes you to Schuylkill avenue, headed south. Go one block on Schuylkill, turn left, and you are on Bainbridge, quite possibly all by yourself. The rest of the crowd is still over on South.
That, of course, is the attraction of Bainbridge: It is a seriously underutilized street.
Why aren't more motorists doing this? Well, let's slip behind the wheel of a small, reasonably maneuverable sedan and spend of few bewildering, hair-raising moments navigating down the slope at the east end of the South street bridge.
IMAGINE that you are a motorist who has just fled the Schuylkill expressway at 5:30 pm on a hot summer weekday. You're tired, a bit distracted, maybe a bit sweaty, possibly still frightened by the behavior of a particularly deranged motorist who lunged across several lanes of traffic to get to the Vare avenue exit.
By the way, I'm describing myself here. I commuted to Claymont, Delaware, for five years during the middle oughts.
But let's say that you are not me. Instead, you're coming from out of town to visit friends who have recently moved to Philadelphia, and you have never been on the South Street bridge before. As you come down the long slope that leads to the foot of the bridge at 27th street, you are confronted with the scene in the picture at the beginning of this story.
Here's another view, a little higher up on the hill.
Aside from the pedestrians and the bicyclists, is there anything in this picture that a red-blooded American motorist from the suburbs might find unusual? Take a closer look at the signs.
I think these signs tell motorists a lot about what they can't do, but tell them very little about how to get where they want to go. There is a sign that says Schuylkill avenue, and there is an arrow. But there is no indication of the existence of something called Bainbridge street, let alone any guidance as to how to get there.
Why aren't more people going to Bainbridge by way of Schuylkill avenue? I think it may be because they have no idea this option exists. Certainly the signage at the foot of the bridge isn't telling them.
I think we should have a sign that gives the motorists their options. I was thinking about what that sign should look like. I happened to be on the New Jersey turnpike while I was doing this thinking. For some strange reason, I had an inspiration. Why don't we design something like the signs we see on the interstate?
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| A sketch for the sign. |
I'd actually make two of these signs. I'd put one at the foot of the bridge, and then I'd back up and put the second sign at the spot where a ramp and stairs connect to the Schuylkill river trail. This sign would give the motorist some advance notice of what he is about to confront. There is also a one-legged gantry here for the traffic lights. You could hang the sign on the arm that holds the traffic lights.
You'll notice in the picture that there is another set of traffic lights further down the hill. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.) Why not put the sign there? It's too close to the spot where a motorist must make a series of decisions very quickly. The two motor-vehicle lanes are about to split. The first thing that happens is the big sign painted on the surface of the right-hand lane, saying that the right-hand lane has just become a right-turn only lane.
And then the bike lane suddenly jumps away from the right-hand curb and snuggles itself between the two motor-vehicle lanes. So if you are a driver in the right-hand lane, and you suddenly figure out that the lane you are in will not take you to South street, and you wanted to go to South street, you panic and you may very well muscle your way across the bike lane and into the left-hand motor-vehicle lane.
You could, of course, stay in the right-hand lane and go to Bainbridge. But you don't know you can do that. Nobody has told you.
Here's another view of the bike lane that you have to muscle through to get back to the left-hand lane.
Adding a few signs here would, I think, greatly improve life for motorists, but it would not solve all the problems on this section of the bridge. I personally think that the downhill bike lane should stay at the curb. And I think there should be only one downhill motor-vehicle lane. This would, among other things, make more space for the uphill side of the bridge, where large vehicles frequently have trouble making the turn from 27th street, causing them to enter the uphill bike lane at the corner and occasionally even jump the curb onto the sidewalk.
As currently constituted, this space at the foot of the bridge, created by humans, just keeps throwing curve balls at the motorist, the cyclist, and the pedestrian.
I personally don't think any of these proposed changes to the layout of the lanes here will ever happen. But I do think the signs we've been talking about here would be a meaningful improvement, and not just on the bridge.
I also think that the basic issues we're talking about here go well beyond the redesign of one intersection. We have a group of pleasant residential neighborhoods living in the shadow of the bridge, and we need to balance the needs of those neighborhoods - for safety, and also for peace and quiet - with the need to move large numbers of motor vehicles through a key part of the city's street system. For this we need a camera with a wide-angle lens, as well as a microscope.
I'd suggest a comprehensive look at South street and the surrounding areas, running from the foot of the bridge at 27th street down to 21st street. What you do on Bainbridge street at Schuylkill avenue will have an effect when Bainbridge enters the intersection with 23rd, 24th, and Grays Ferry avenue. This, too, is a very interesting intersection. It pulls together four streets instead of the usual two. Even at the foot of the bridge, there are only three streets that you need to tangle and untangle.
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