Cutting Corners

Mark Twain and the Venetian Gondolier

South Street bridge. So what is the acceptable casualty rate here?

In 1867, Mark Twain took a trip to, among other places, Venice. Here's what he has to say about gondoliers cutting corners:

"I am afraid I study the gondolier's marvelous skill more than I do the sculptured palaces we glide among. He cuts a corner so closely, now and then, or misses another gondola by such an imperceptible hair-breadth that I feel myself 'scrooching,' as the children say, just as one does when a buggy wheel grazes his elbow." (This is in chapter 23 of Innocents Abroad.)

My original thought had been that the phrase originated at the dawn of the motor age, but upon further reflection I wouldn't be surprised if the term went back at least to Roman times. It's easy enough to imagine a man in a toga scolding a careless charioteer by yelling, "Don't cut corners!"

Of course the man in the toga would have said it in Latin. I wondered what that would sound like, so I asked Emily Marston and Ashley Opalka, my mentors in all things classical, and they guided me to this: "Noli angulos praecidere!"

Cars Cutting Corners
At any rate, cars didn't invent corner cutting, but they clearly made matters worse, and, not surprisingly, official efforts to control corner cutting date back to the beginning of the motor age.

I took this picture, and then I jumped to the left.

In 1903, a wealthy New Yorker named William Phelps Eno published "Rules for Driving," a four-page document. New York City adopted the "Rules," making it the country's first official traffic code. As a counter to corner-cutting, Eno adopted something called the outside left turn. Drivers were instructed to move straight into the intersection until they reached the center and then make a virtually 90 degree turn, with the center point of the intersection always to their left. So pretty much the opposite of cutting a corner.

Not too shabby. Maybe even four feet of clearance.

Eno also suggested that New York install a post at the center of the intersection, to mark the spot. The city did this in 1904 at numerous intersections.

The center post came to be called the "silent policeman," and it spread rapidly across the country, as did Eno's "Rules."

Note fragging on the little red bathmat at the crosswalk.

Neither the posts nor the "Rules" were received with unmixed enthusiasm, and it appears that something of a guerrilla war developed against the posts, with large numbers being destroyed. Traffic regulators moved on to traffic lights; the first practical traffic lights appeared in Cleveland in 1914. (For more on all this, see Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic, 2011, chapter 2.)

I think of the silent policeman as a taciturn and rather stiff fellow standing at the center of a roundabout - the basic idea was to get cars moving in a circular direction around a main point. But this small piece of infrastructure could hardly do the job on its own, and the typical intersection remained a classic crossroads, with two streets intersecting at more or less right angles, and everyone seeking the shortest way through, as they had done before cars. Traffic lights worked to segregate traffic headed in different directions, but they did nothing to discourage the shortest way through.

A truck kissing the curb.

The South Street Bridge
Which brings us to the present day and to a particular corner in Philadelphia, where motorists turn right from 27th Street to go up onto the South Street bridge.

First the good news. The existing bike lanes on South Street and 27th Street finally got flex posts earlier this year. Back in 2017, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia made a detailed proposal concerning the bike lanes in this area. Adding flex posts was a big part of the proposal, and while the Bike Coalition plan for the lanes was, in my opinion, superior to the final result, I think any posts at all must be seen as a major step forward.

Here's the fly in the ointment. The Bike Coalition called on the City to "Install a mountable corner island at the corner of 27th and South to slow down motor vehicles turning onto the South Street Bridge."

Good idea. In addition to slowing traffic, it would discourage corner cutting, which is rampant here.

Cars do it too. Note the cracks in the sidewalk.

What did we get? Nothing. There is no marked bike lane at the corner.

I simply don't understand this. If you don't want to do an island, how about a mountable curb? Here's a mountable curb in Brooklyn, at Fulton and Bedford, where turning traffic apparently has trouble staying in its lane.

Do a curved version of this. But do something.

Fulton at Bedford, Brooklyn.

Why Care?
So why is this important? Because this intersection is a test case for the City's Vision Zero and Complete Streets programs. Are cars and trucks and buses prepared to make space for bicyclists and pedestrians?

Bikes and peds aren't asking for the whole space, just part of it. And perhaps we can all agree that it would be better if buses did not drive on the sidewalk.

This intersection is a tight space, and the tradeoffs are hard. I think all of the solutions will wind up with motor vehicles going slower.

I think adding a curved mountable curb at the corner would do a lot of good. Currently there is no indication for motorists, telling them that the space next to the curb is a bike lane, and suggesting that they take a line around the corner that stays out of the bike lane. Call me an optimist, but I think that many of the people turning this corner will be willing to follow directions if they are offered.

Large motor vehicles, like buses and trucks, do have trouble here, and some of them will still mount the curb, and that will continue to be an unsafe condition. However, I do think the mountable curb would greatly increase safety here.

There are other things that could be done, such as removing the eastbound turn lane, or moving the stop bar for the eastbound traffic further back from the intersection. Both of these would provide more room for maneuver on the westbound side.

I can already hear people complaining about increased congestion for motor vehicles, and more backups on the bridge and on Lombard. But here's the thing. The way to cut congestion for motor vehicles is to dramatically increase the number of people walking, biking, and taking the bus.

For a century, we've been giving more and more space to cars, and we have never solved the basic problems of congestion and crashes. More space for cars will not ever solve these problems.

But will more people actually walk and bike and take the bus if we give them decent infrastructure? Yes. Let's just take the bicyclists.  When it comes to cycling, numerous surveys have put the population into four categories. My favorite is No Way, No How, usually about a third of the population. What we have biking on the South Street bridge today are the Strong and Fearless, and the Enthused and Confident, perhaps ten percent of the total. Half the population are Interested but Concerned.

What are the people in this last category concerned about? Getting hit by a car and suffering a life-altering injury. Give them a complete network of protected bike lanes, and we could quintuple the number of people bicycling in Philadelphia.

And that's how you solve congestion in the main traffic lanes.

We're not all strong and fearless.

See also Intermittently Terrifying, Put Traffic Lights on the Schuylkill Expressway, No Turn on Red, Running of the Bulls on Lombard Street, Is It a Curve or Is It a Turn?

Is It a Curve or Is It a Turn?

Making the turn, child in tow.

I've been looking at the intersection of 27th Street and Lombard Street in Philadelphia. It's a key part of the westbound access to the South Street bridge. The one thing I know for sure is that it is not an intersection. There is no westward extension of Lombard, past the intersection; and there is no 27th Street north of the intersection. 27th here is a one-block stub leading south to the bridge. There's another one-block stub of 27th just the other side of South, which feeds cars onto the bridge from Schuylkill Avenue.

Lombard and 27th are effectively one street that bends awkwardly at approximately 90 degrees, at the point where the nomenclature changes.

So this 90 degree thingy, is it a curve, or is it a turn? The people who designed and built this little stretch of road seem to have been genuinely conflicted by this question.

Lombard and 27th Street come together.

Here's another way of expressing the dilemma: Is it a city street, or is it an access ramp to the bridge and the Schuylkill Expressway, aka I-76?

Points in favor of ramp. There's no traffic light at Taney, the cross street just before 27th. (I think the ramp vibe starts at Taney.) There is also no traffic light at 27th, where there is, admittedly, no cross traffic. But the lack of a signal at these locations is a signal.

As you come to the turn, you'll notice the designers have gone to considerable effort to at least make it look like it's not a full 90 degree turn. The road widens substantially at the corner and the curbs don't form right angles, but instead present gentle, wide curves. On the inner side of the turn, this effect is enhanced by the judicious use of paint. All this encourages people to act as if they're swinging along on an interstate access ramp.

Finally, there are no crosswalks at Lombard and 27th. I personally think you'd have to be insane to try to walk across the street here, crosswalks or no crosswalks. But it's another little clue that this is not a city street.

(There are no crosswalks across Lombard at Taney either. People do walk across the street in this area with some regularity. Remember, there are lots and lots of people walking on the bridge, and they have to get there somehow.)

Points against ramp. If the turn at Lombard and 27th actually was an interstate access ramp, the curve would be banked.  A banked roadway makes it easier for cars to turn; it also means that all drainage goes to the low side of the bank, which in this case would be the left side of the road.

Instead, the street at this point has a crown in the middle and drains to both sides. This means that people on the right side of the road are turning on a surface that has reverse camber.  The problem with reverse camber in a turn is that it tends to throw you off the road. Which is why curves are generally banked.

Not surprisingly motorists tend to steer through this area slightly to the left of the crown, where the camber helps them turn. When they do this they need to avoid a large storm drain located in a depression in the pavement. They can do this by going to the right of the storm drain, or by straddling it. You don't want to put a wheel in that depression.

A storm drain for the motorists.

My friend Bill Marston thinks the drain probably started life next to the curb, but then the curb moved several feet closer to the building. If we accept this line of thinking, the streets engineers wasted their time moving the curb, because the bulk of the traffic is going to the right of the drain, and the motorists who are straddling could easily move to the right. So you have the appearance of a wider street, but not the reality. (The gap between the curb and the grate is 6' 6". I measured it.)

What's going on? I think the cartway's profile here is driven less by the needs of drivers and more by some thorny issues of drainage. The intersection of 27th and Lombard is at the bottom of two hills, one running down Lombard and the other coming down 27th from the bridge. When it rains, this intersection is definitely collecting storm water from a pretty wide area.

In addition to watching motorists, I've been watching bicyclists navigate through this area. They're hardly ever in the bike lane at the corner. They're to the left of it, I think for two main reasons: First, the higher route allows for a gentler curve. Second, there is a fearsome storm drain designed to catch the wheels of bicycles and eat them, and it's located at the curb in a particularly infelicitous spot. (I've also heard comments about gravel gathering in this spot. I wouldn't be surprised, since it's at the bottom of two hills. I just didn't see it.)

Storm drain in the bike lane.

I don't have solutions for any of these issues, but as we redo the bike lane in this section, I just wanted people to be aware of some of the design challenges.

Riding the curve.

See also Morning on Lombard Street, No Turn On Red, Put Traffic Lights on the Schuylkill Expressway.

No Turn On Red

Vision Zero Meets the South Street Bridge

Sunset Avenue Pavilion, Asbury Park.

Worst things first. The intersection at 27th and South, at the foot of the South Street bridge, presents ... some issues. The worst of these is the traffic that comes off the bridge and turns right to go on to Schuylkill Avenue. I understand that the City's traffic engineers want to get these darling motorists home and in the arms of their loved ones as soon as possible. But perhaps it would be wiser - shall we say more balanced - if they tarry at the light for a few seconds. There's a lot of pedestrian traffic on this bridge - much of it crossing with its back to the turning traffic. And there are various vehicles - both motorized and unmotorized - that come down 27th, cross South, and seek to go down Schuylkill Avenue.

I was there Thursday afternoon, August 24, and I saw three near misses in one hour.

If Vision Zero means anything in this city, it means a No Turn on Red sign at this intersection. Not next year. Not sometime before the next mayoral election. Right now. Make the call, Jim Kenney.

Okay, so let's back up. Why was I out there? Well, a little while ago I posted an article about the westbound traffic on the bridge, suggesting that the traffic that backs up Lombard Street in the morning rush might be alleviated by putting traffic lights on the Schuylkill Expressway. And it got me thinking again about the eastbound traffic. My main concern for the last few years has been the garage entrance for the new CHOP building.

No longer. The worst spot eastbound is the intersection at the eastern foot of the bridge.

Early Friday morning, the South Street Bridge at 27th.

There are other issues, but again, let's back up a bit. I went to the bridge three times in two days and did traffic counts.

A Few Surprises
On Thursday morning, August 24, between 10:45 and 11:45, there were 439 motor vehicles in the left lane crossing the intersection and proceeding east on South Street. In the right-turn lane, headed for Schuylkill Avenue and points beyond, there were 178 vehicles. Of these 178, ten changed their minds at the last minute, swerved across the bike lane, which at this point lies between the two car lanes, and proceeded eastward down South. (Total cars = 617.)

On Thursday afternoon, between 4:50 and 5:50 p.m., there were 370 vehicles in the left lane, heading east on South. There were 301 vehicles in the right-turn lane, heading to Schuylkill Avenue. Of these 301, 13 changed their minds and jumped over to South Street. (Total cars = 671.)

On Friday morning, August 25, between 7:50 and 8:50, 410 vehicles used the left lane to get to South Street. In the right lane there were an additional 201, with ten of those bolting to the left and proceeding down South. (Total cars = 611.)

The totals for each hour are similar, but the composition varies. The highest number of vehicles proceeding down South was on Thursday morning; the highest number of cars using the right lane was on Thursday afternoon.

My main learning here is the number of cars switching from the right lane to the left, and crossing the bike lane to do so. This follows the crossover, where the bike lane moves to the left and the right-hand motor-vehicle lane moves to the curb. This crossover is challenging in itself, but at least people are aware that it is going to happen. What they are unlikely to anticipate is that, approximately every five minutes, a car will cross the bike lane to get from the right lane to the left.

I think the current lane configuration at the east end of the bridge is fundamentally flawed, and not fixable by palliative measures. We need to see people as they are, not as we would have them be, and then we need to design accordingly. A human factors engineer in a good mood could write a very amusing report about this intersection in its current state.

Also observed but not recorded were several u-turns, a number of drivers violating the bike lane near 27th by moving from the left lane to the right and then proceeding to Schuylkill Avenue, and a number of cars stopped in the bike lane. It might be helpful if CHOP management urged its employees to pick up their Uber rides on Schuylkill Avenue, and not on the bridge. Finally, traffic in and out of the CHOP garage was light at all times.

Kill the Turn Lane; Add a Lane Westbound
My initial thought in doing these traffic counts was a desire to free up space for an additional westbound lane on the bridge. As it now stands, the westbound traffic on the bridge starts in one lane, which eventually blossoms into three. If westbound traffic backs up into the single-lane area of the bridge, which it frequently does in the morning, then traffic can quickly back up Lombard as far as 22nd Street. Adding a second lane here would allow westbound and southbound traffic to flow through, avoiding the queue for the northbound Schuylkill ramp.

I don't think adding the second westbound lane would solve all the problems here - the basic problem is the Schuylkill Expressway - but I think it would be a substantial help.

So should we kill the eastbound turn lane and add a westbound lane? Well, I'm for it. It would allow the eastbound bike lane to stay at the curb, avoiding both the crossover area and the bandits who violate the bike lane near the intersection. A No Turn on Red sign would make life much easier for the many pedestrians on the bridge, and overall the intersection should become much calmer. And the snake of traffic that we see so often on Lombard Street should become much shorter and appear less frequently.

The downside is that eastbound traffic will back up much further than it currently does. My observations at the end of August revealed plenty of back-up room on the bridge. It's true that traffic will be heavier after Labor Day. Perhaps someone who gets paid to do this stuff would like to go out and see if numbers from the fall invalidate my basic thesis, which is that there is room on the bridge to queue more cars, and that the bridge is a more appropriate location than Lombard Street.

Beyond that, however, is the question of safety. The current mayor has announced his commitment to Vision Zero. I believe my proposed configuration on the bridge would substantially increase safety for all bridge users. So, tell me how keeping things the way they are fits in with Mayor Kenney's commitment to Vision Zero.

See also Put Traffic Lights on the Schuylkill Expressway and Morning on Lombard Street.

Put Traffic Lights on the Schuylkill Expressway

Waiting patiently for a green light on the South Street bridge. 

This idea came to me on July 6 of this year. It had taken me a while to get there. Last year I wrote a story called Morning on Lombard Street, which described the hellacious mess that Lombard Street can become during the morning commute.

On a bad morning, traffic can back up Lombard to 22nd. It turns out that this congestion has essentially nothing to do with the bike lane, although people continue to mention that possibility to me. The congestion is caused by the Schuylkill Expressway. When it backs up heading north, the northbound access ramp from the South Street bridge backs up and then the bridge backs up. If it's bad enough the backup goes across the bridge and then snakes back up Lombard.

If you'd like more of the nitty-gritty on this, read Morning on Lombard Street.

I'd never actually taken pictures of these backups, so last Friday, August 4, I went out in the morning to snap a few shots. It being a Friday morning in August, traffic was very light, and I found myself more interested in another phenomenon that many people seem blissfully unaware of. Cars do not own the South Street bridge. There are scads of bikes and pedestrians and dogs. I'm actually thinking of setting up a coffee stand on the bridge, just next to the northbound ramp to the Schuylkill. And I'll definitely include a free doggie water bowl.

On July 17 there was a community meeting about upgrades to the Lombard and South Street bike lanes. I'd been aware that there was a lot of bike traffic on the South Street bridge - Lombard feeds the westbound bikes onto the bridge, and South takes the eastbound bikes off the bridge - but I was actually surprised to learn that 15 percent of the vehicular traffic on Lombard is bicycles. Then you need to add in the pedestrians, and of course the dogs.

The South Street bridge is not an urban wasteland of concrete and cars.

Six people and a dog in search of a green light.

Even though the car volumes weren't there on Friday, it's interesting that the northbound access ramp still accounted for the lion's share of the cars, as it does on heavier days. The picture below gives you the idea. Westbound and southbound are running clear. The northbound ramp traffic is backed up almost to the CHOP building.

Do not take pictures while walking in a crosswalk.

Here's another shot, showing the Achilles heel of the whole thing. If the cars back up any further than this, you're into the area where there's only one lane. And that means that all the westbound and southbound traffic gets snarled up with the northbound traffic. And some days the snarl goes back up Lombard to 22nd.

The Achilles heel.

Last year, in Morning on Lombard Street, I recommended closing the northbound ramp. Among other things, it's a very dangerous place. You need to enter the Expressway in the fast lane, and the sightlines are not good. People with long experience in this matter told me that my proposal was not new and would never happen.

So here I am with another idea. I recently read that Market Street and JFK Boulevard were designed as "urban highways." They have traffic lights. Instead of treating the stretch of the Schuylkill around the South Street bridge as an interstate, let's call it an urban highway. It doesn't have cross streets, but it has scads of exit and entrance ramps, and the access ramps are pretty much all problematic. Let's put lights across the main roadway and also at the front of each access ramp. Then let people take turns. I'm thinking things will go  better.

When traffic is heavy, something close to this already happens on an informal basis. The cars in the main roadway slow down, and every once in a while they actually let someone in from one of the access ramps. I'm just suggesting that we use familiar, approved traffic control devices to formalize this dance, reducing the danger and frustration that are endemic to the current arrangement.

Waiting at the light by the Schuylkill access ramps.

Let me close with one last picture - I am a bicycle guy after all, and I believe there are more bicycles than cars in this picture. I've been waiting three years to see that. The future is here. It's on the South Street bridge. We just need our village elders to snap out of their Rip Van Winkle act and help us build upon what we can already see with our eyes.

See also Intermittently Terrifying.

Morning on Lombard Street

Bike lane, Lombard Street.

My friend Jim Campbell suggested that I have a look at the intersection of Lombard and 22nd, for congestion and cars blocking the bike lane that starts at 22nd and then runs down Lombard, across the South Street bridge, and out to Penn, HUP, CHOP, and other points in West Philly.

So this morning I took a walk, arriving at 22nd and Lombard before 8 a.m. I was going to do traffic counts, but the situation was patently obvious and, I thought, better explained by photographs.

The initial thought was that motorists coming up 22nd were turning and, finding the car lane full, jumping over to the bike lane. They do this, and often go in the bike lane for several blocks before they're able to squeeze into the car lane.

Lombard is very crowded in the morning. We'll get to the reason for that in a little bit. At any rate there's a solid line of cars from 22nd street down onto the bridge at 27th and South. The good news is that the traffic is moving very slowly, which reduces the crash risks.

In addition to the motorists turning from 22nd, we have motorists on Lombard coming directly across the intersection and entering the bike lane. Lombard has two car lanes up to 22nd street. The right-hand lane is marked as a right-turn only lane at 22nd. Some drivers just go straight.

Among them are the bus drivers. There is a bus stop on the east side of 22nd and Lombard, in the right-turn only lane. After receiving and discharging passengers in the bus stop, bus drivers then have a choice. They can go directly across 22nd into the bike lane, or they can move to the left and change lanes in the middle of an intersection.

Recommendation # 1. Eliminate the bus stop at 22nd. There are bus stops on almost every block along Lombard. One stop will not be missed greatly, and the change will make life a lot easier for bus drivers and the people who need to maneuver around them.

Recommendation # 2. Add some flex posts at the beginning of the bike lane to prevent cars and buses from driving down the lane.

And now to the question of why Lombard jams the way it does every weekday morning. Bridge traffic, you say. Yes, but there is a more precise answer. The vast majority of the cars on the bridge are headed for the northbound entrance to the Schuylkill Expressway.

I walked up on the bridge and had a look this morning. (Not my first visit.) The bridge conveniently sprouts three westbound lanes - the middle lane heading to West Philly, the left lane for the Schuylkill southbound, and the right lane for the Schuylkill northbound. The left and center lanes are uncrowded and flow freely. The right lane is a solid line of cars for its entire length.

Recommendation # 3. Close the northbound entrance to the Schuylkill Expressway from the South Street bridge.

First of all, the entrance is dangerous. Drivers have to merge to the right onto the Schuylkill, into the fast lane. And of course there is that blind spot that cars have on their right side, looking to the rear.

Second. it doesn't make a lot of sense to load northbound traffic onto the Schuylkill here. South Street is a southern gateway to Center City. It should be for people arriving from the south and departing to the south.

Why load more northbound traffic onto a road that is already jammed with northbound traffic? Why not wait until at least some of these people get off at Center City, and then you only have to worry about the people headed to King of Prussia.

Third, there's plenty of room on the bridges further north. I walked up there this morning, as well. Walnut, Market, JFK westbound. Little House on the Prairie.

A traffic department worth its salt would be looking for ways to balance these flows.

I'm aware that 22nd street is heavily traveled in the morning and afternoon. But the genius of a street grid is that there are options - basically any even-numbered street. And 16th at Love Park is five lanes wide. Versus one lane on Lombard.

Every once in a while my camera gives me a gift.

See also Love Park Redesign: Why Are There Still Five Lanes on 16th Street?

Some Thoughts on Bicycle Lanes

One summer day when I was about twelve I was riding my bicycle down the main street of West Hampton Beach, New York.  The cars on this street parked head in, and when one of them abruptly started to pull out, I braked hard.

When I regained consciousness, I was sitting on a chair in the local pharmacy, surrounded by attentive adults.  I had gone flying and managed to abrade my chin and forehead without damaging my glasses.  There were no helmets in those days.  The bike was fine.  And so, miraculously, was I.

11th Street
Recently I've been going to South Philly Community Acupuncture on Passyunk Avenue.  I generally walk home through the Italian Market, but a few weeks ago I found myself getting reacquainted with 11th Street.  The cars park backed into the curb on 11th Street.  Most of them, anyway.  Some park head in.

When I was ten or so, my brother and I used to ride our Uncle Ed's horses.  This was way upstate in New York, and we would ride trails in the woods and traverse farmers' pastures.  I noticed that my horse would shy away from the large rock outcroppings that are a feature of pastures in the area.  (My grandfather used to call his farm "Stony Acres.")  I asked my uncle about the horse shying, and he explained that the horse was from out West, where rocks like that tended to attract rattlesnakes looking for a warm place to sunbathe.  Rattlesnake beach.

I think my avoidance of 11th Street over the years may be my reaction to the way the cars were parked.  But I confess that the parking setup does make sense.  11th Street is very wide, and South Philly is very short of parking.

Sometimes I wonder why the street is so wide.  Perhaps one day I will engage in a bit of archival research.

Even with back-in parking on both sides, there is ample room for two car lanes, one northbound, the other other southbound, and for one bicycle lane, northbound.  The southbound car lane is painted with sharrows, which look something like a corporal's stripes sitting on a bicycle and are supposed to encourage motorists to share the road with bicyclists (share arrow).  I was standing there one day, wondering how well this worked, when as if on cue a bicyclist passed me going south in the northbound bike lane.

This wide configuration for 11th Street extends from Bainbridge down to Reed, where it runs into an Acme grocery and a very large parking lot, which are sitting, I'm told, on the site of the old Moyamensing prison.  Why the parking lot is a parking lot, and not a three-story parking garage, I do not know.

Inexplicably, the bike lane and the sharrows stop at Washington Avenue.  I have no idea why they don't extend down to Reed.  Perhaps the city ran out of paint.

It's kind of a no-brainer to suggest extending the current treatment to Reed, but I have what I think would be a better idea -- a two-lane cycle track.  There's room.  Paint it right next to the sidewalk, and move the car parking out where the one bike lane is currently.  All of a sudden you have protected bike lanes running north and south between Bainbridge and Reed.

This would be a big deal, because moving people from South Philly to Center City, and back again, is a big deal.  The Spruce-Pine pair of bike lanes provides access between Center City and West Philly.  There is nothing comparable for South Philly.

It would also help people get to the new east-west bike lanes proposed for Washington Avenue.

I think Philly will always be a share-the-road town.  But wouldn't it be nice if the road sharing took place on quiet little streets near your home, and then brought you to an arterial network of bike lanes and cycle tracks that took you everywhere?

Schuylkill Avenue
I seem to have cycle tracks on the brain these days.   Recently I was at a community meeting about the new buildings CHOP plans to build along the east bank of the Schuylkill River, just south of the South Street Bridge.  (CHOP stands for Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, already a major presence just the other side of the South Street Bridge.)

It was an odd meeting.  The audience was asked to vote on something, but the people running the meeting didn't seem to be able to agree about what we were voting on.

Still, it was a generally good-hearted, if feisty, discussion.  I think the meeting space helped -- The Philadelphia School's new Garage space at 25th and South, two blocks from the South Street Bridge.  Anyway I found myself standing in the speakers' line, thinking about what I could say as virtually every speaker in front of me bashed the two vehicular entrances to CHOP's new campus that are currently planned for the South Street Bridge.  One of them even gets a stoplight.

As I was looking at the plan of the site, projected on a large screen, I found myself focusing on little old Schuylkill Avenue.  This street runs north-south between the new CHOP campus and the Toll Brothers development in the old Naval Home.

For years the only point of public interest on Schuylkill Avenue was the Springfield Beer Distributor, which has decamped for Washington Avenue.  There's a large PECO power plant, not exactly a tourist destination, and not much else.  (Okay, the School District's police department has a garage, as does the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority.  There's a no-name warehouse at 801 Schuylkill Avenue, where George Smith will be happy to tow your car should you choose to commit some unspecified infraction.)

There's a lot more vehicular traffic on Schuylkill Avenue than there used to be, because the Naval Home development has a gate there.  But it's still pretty desolate, and pedestrians are a rarity.

It's a pretty wide street, not as wide as 11th Street, but pretty wide.  And it runs from South Street to Christian.  Not Reed, but not bad.  And Christian hooks you into Grays Ferry Avenue (bike lanes) and Washington Avenue (bike lanes).

So, when it was my turn to speak at the meeting, I suggested that the designers look
into a cycle track.  They listened politely.

A few days later I decided to do the research I should have done before making the proposal.

It's a two-lane, two-way road, and I think there's just enough wiggle room for one but not two bike lanes.  I scrambled a bit to save my idea, and I came up with something I thought I would never propose:  Making the sidewalks narrower.  Less room for pedestrians.  How can you do this, Bill?  Well, both sidewalks are 15 feet wide.  The sidewalk in front of my house on Lombard Street is a bit under 12 feet wide.  Even if the new CHOP development puts a lot of pedestrians on the street, I think 12-foot sidewalks would probably be sufficient.

There are quite a few utility poles on the Naval Home side of the street, along with four fire hydrants and three of what look like steam vents.  The CHOP side of the street has two utility poles, up by the old beer distributor, and three fire hydrants.

If you were willing to move some curbs, there would be plenty of room for a cycle track.

But where would it go?  Schuylkill Avenue runs into Christian, a very narrow two-way street, which crosses Grays Ferry Avenue at a point where Grays Ferry is also a very narrow two-way street.  And that intersection actually has five spokes because another  random street runs into it.  Kinda gnarly.  (All right, it's 25th Street.)

Grays Ferry by the Naval Home
Grays Ferry Avenue and I have a history.  For a number of years I worked down in Delaware, commuting by I-95 and the Schuylkill Expressway (aka I-76).  On the way home, if the Schuylkill looked like it was getting ready to swallow its tongue, I would hop off at Vare Avenue and tool up Grays Ferry to home.

The lower part of Grays Ferry is very wide, with capacious bicycle lanes.  Then you go under the railroad viaduct, the road narrows, the bike lanes disappear (replaced by sharrows), and for quite a while you run straight as an arrow up next to the brick wall of the Naval Home on a street that feels quite a lot like a lane in a bowling alley.

On this stretch, there are six intersections on the east side and two curb cuts for the Naval Home on the west side.  There are no stop signs on this part of Grays Ferry, and only one light, at Fitzwater.  Throw in a tired motorist's strong desire to be home, and this is not a good place for bicyclists.

My post office is down on the wide part of Grays Ferry, and I've ridden my bike down the bowling lane.  I won't do it any more.  I'll take 21st south to Washington; 21st is narrow, but it has lots of stop signs to slow the cars down.  It could use some sharrows.  For the way back there's 22nd, which is a little wider and has a very comfortable bike lane (also the Ultimo coffee bar at Catharine).

The Foot of the Bridge
As we headed for home after the CHOP meeting, Lois and I were walking along with an acquaintance who was explaining why we really didn't need a bicycle lane on South Street.  I listened politely, but I was mainly thinking about the idea I should have proposed at the meeting.

It has to do with the intersection at the eastern foot of the South Street Bridge, which is technically South and 27th (another one of those now-you-see-it, now-you-don't streets).

This intersection is scary for bicyclists, pedestrians, and, frankly, motorists.  One of the reasons is that the bike lane, as it approaches the intersection, kicks out from the sidewalk and eventually winds up between two lanes of car traffic.  This is so the right lane of cars can turn right.  It is an invitation to mayhem, to which we are about to add two curb cuts further back on the bridge that will apparently accept cars turning from both the eastbound and the westbound lanes.  And cars exiting the curb cuts will also be able to go either way.  All this takes place in perhaps 100 yards -- two curb cuts and a crazy intersection.

We should remember that many of the drivers headed east on the South Street Bridge have just gotten off the Schuylkill Expressway and are still in Interstate mode.  I know.  I was one of them.

I can't fix the curb cuts, which are apparently as-of-right.  CHOP doesn't seem to need anybody's permission to install them.

But I can fix the intersection.  Sarah Clark Stuart, of the Bicycle Coalition, has been sending around materials about what I call the Dutch intersection, because it seems to have gotten its start in the Netherlands.  It neatly separates cars, bicycles, and pedestrians, and provides everybody convenient and pretty safe ways through the intersection.  That's what I should have talked about at the meeting.

If you'd like to know more about the Dutch intersection, here are some links:

http://www.protectedintersection.com/
(A nice video with lots of suggestions for further reading.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA 
(A two minute video with a Dutch accent.)