The other day I was walking to work on a beautiful day about 8:30 in the morning, and as I got to Spruce Street the light turned red. So I stood there until the light turned green and, for something to do, counted the traffic in the street. Eight cars, four bicycles.
The light turned green. I moved on. Around the time I hit Rittenhouse Square it occurred to me that one-third of the vehicles in that little snapshot back on Spruce Street were bicycles.
Yet it didn't feel like that many bikes. Bikes are inconspicuous. Any frame you put them in, they're easily overwhelmed by a few cars.
The Visual Frame
Take the visual frame. The silhouette of a bicycle coming directly at you is minuscule. Then turn the bike and look at it in profile. It gets a lot bigger, but it's essentially transparent. You can see through it -- a few bars of metal, and wheels with spokes. You're talking about something that, compared to a car, is barely there.
The only vehicle I can recall that is more evanescent is a single scull on the Schuylkill, going directly away from you as the sun goes down. The boat itself is essentially under water. All you really see is the rower and the oars.
So how many bikes would it take to produce the same impression of occupying space as one car? This is a very subjective thing. My guess is maybe eight bikes, gaggled at a stoplight, might be an adequate visual counterweight to one car. But remember, the bikes are carrying eight people, and the car is probably carrying one.
The Auditory Frame
How about the auditory frame? Cars and their big brothers, the buses and the trucks, are a primary source of noise in our cities (and also out in the bucolic countryside). Other major sources of noise are airplanes and helicopters and heating and air conditioning units, like the compressor in my back yard.
Bikes, like pedestrians, are basically silent -- except when their riders decide to cast some invective towards an errant taxi-driver. I remember calling a cabbie a jackass on Spruce Street. Believe me, he deserved it. His response was to to share with me all the English curse words he knew -- about five, as I recall. I think we both wound up enjoying ourselves, and the vocabulary exercise seemed to be a good stress reliever on both sides. He was happy he hadn't hit me, and I was very happy about the same thing.
So bikes are Lilliputian in the auditory frame, particularly when compared to, say, a poorly tuned Diesel trash truck.
The good news is that cars don't need to be so loud. Hybrids, when running on electric, are virtually silent. Kind of like bicycles and pedestrians.
Oddly, some people think this is bad. There have been proposals to add sound to hybrid cars, so that inattentive pedestrians can be aware of their approach.
I'm not a great fan of this approach. My thought is, if the overall environment is quieter, we will more easily attend to subtler cues. And failing that, the motorist could beep her horn or, in an emergency, roll down her window and dish out a good dose of Philly invective. It works for bicyclists. I've even heard the occasional pedestrian speak up and remonstrate with a vehicular reprobate (both two- and four-wheeled).
The Olfactory Frame
Finally, we come to the olfactory frame. Motorized vehicles inevitably smell. That is because they are essentially defecating into the air -- and the result winds up on your window sill and in your lungs. Some are worse than others. Rudolf Diesel's progeny are among the worst, but they are hardly alone.
Bicycles, on the other hand, don't smell. Okay, maybe a little chain oil. And bicyclists can definitely smell, which is why I'm predicting that the next great office perk will be showers for sweaty bicyclists who show up to work early, so they can freshen up for the day to come.
Getting Big, But Not Seen That Way
The Bicycle Coalition has recently come out with a wonderful report. Two Philly neighborhoods, Center City and South Philly, have bicycle commuting rates above 5 percent. This is huge, and makes us major players on the national bicycle stage.
But do any of us here in Philly really perceive the magnitude of the shift that is taking place? I include myself here. I have my little snapshot on Spruce Street, where 33 percent of the vehicles were bikes. I could calculate that, but could I feel it? Can I feel it right now? Frankly, no. And I think the time is not far off when most of the vehicles in such a snapshot will be bicycles. I'm saying more than 50 percent.
But will we see it? The bicycle's virtues -- small, quiet, olfactorily inoffensive -- all work against it, when it comes to perceptions of the importance of the bicycle.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
About Cars
I like my car, and I use it a fair amount.
But I'm glad I live in a city where I have a choice -- I can walk, ride a
bike, take a train or a subway or a bus. We in the Northeast are
fortunate that we have these options. A monoculture of cars
is, in the end, self-defeating. And the demands of car culture over
the last century have damaged older cities, like Philadelphia. I have
no desire to park my car in my living room, but that is the way many
homes have been constructed in Philly. We need to push back a little on
the car.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Off-Street Parking at the Italian Market - Current Conditions
In my last post (August 3) I looked at the old Moyamensing Prison site at 11th and Reed in South Philly, which is currently occupied by an Acme supermarket and a 202-place parking lot for Acme shoppers only. I suggested that the lot should be open to the general public, and that this would help relieve the shortage of parking for the Italian Market.
A reader gently suggested that if I was going to write about off-street parking at the Italian Market, I might want to learn about what's already there. And so I went and educated myself.
First stop was the Internet, where I quickly found a website called Philadelphia 9th Street Italian Market: http://www.phillyitalianmarket.com/contact/map.htm. Attached to the site is a map of off-street parking lots: http://www.phillyitalianmarket.com/contact/9thst.gif. It lists seven lots with a total of 560 spaces. Not bad. Certainly more spaces than I expected.
I'd been aware of several of these lots, but a number of them were new to me, so on August 21, after acupuncture, I walked around, map in hand, and counted spaces.
Instead of seven lots, I found five. The municipal lot on Ellsworth between 9th and 10th is now Cedars Village (921 Ellsworth). The website says it's for older people, and construction was completed in April 2014. Nice apartment building. Parking lot had been listed as having 47 spots.
The lot on the north side of Carpenter between 9th and 10th has also disappeared. There is new construction on the spot, which had been listed with 75 parking places.
On the same block of Carpenter, on the south side, there's a lot listed with 65 spaces. I counted 53.
The lot on the south side of Washington between 9th and 10th is listed with 120 spots. I counted 82.
It's true that I'd just come from acupuncture, it was a warm day, and I was hungry. My counts may be off by one or two, but they're not off by 38.
The only lot where my count agreed with the map was the lot on the south side of Washington between 8th and 9th: 43 spaces.
An Improvement Opportunity
This lot is, to my mind, an interesting improvement opportunity. As you're walking on 9th Street below Washington, there's a lengthy plywood barricade on the east side. Behind it is a dead zone of uneven land where presumably there were once buildings. And behind that is the parking lot, occupying perhaps half of the vacant land. Philadelphians, unite! You have nothing to lose but your dead wasteland in the center of the bustling Italian Market.
At the very least we should be able to add 50 places and have an attractive frontage on 9th Street.
The municipal lot on the north side of Washington between 8th and Passyunk is rated for 120 places and has 74.
Finally, the municipal lot on Christian between 7th and 8th is listed for 90 spots but only has 27, plus four spots reserved for Zipcars.
This last lot is adjacent to the lot for the Fleisher Art Memorial. Perhaps at one time all of this was one lot, but that's not the way it is today.
So, as I noted above, the map totals 560 spaces. I counted 279, a little less than half of 560.
Those 202 spots down by the Acme are starting to look pretty good about now, aren't they?
Especially since off-street parking near the Italian Market seems to have declined in recent years. Remember, the map said seven lots, and I found five. Minus 112 spots, by the map's shaky count.
Who's Looking After This Mess?
This business of a neighborhood getting new construction, and parking lots being turned into condos, is predictable. It's happening around the Italian Market, it's happening down by the South Street bridge. And I think it's a good thing. But there's an obvious downside.
Tectonic shifts like this call for a coordinated institutional response. If the area has lost 112 public off-street spots, maybe our city elders should look at the old Moyamensing Prison site and figure out how to add 200 spaces. I believe the merchants would appreciate our concern, as would the customers. Me included.
A reader gently suggested that if I was going to write about off-street parking at the Italian Market, I might want to learn about what's already there. And so I went and educated myself.
First stop was the Internet, where I quickly found a website called Philadelphia 9th Street Italian Market: http://www.phillyitalianmarket.com/contact/map.htm. Attached to the site is a map of off-street parking lots: http://www.phillyitalianmarket.com/contact/9thst.gif. It lists seven lots with a total of 560 spaces. Not bad. Certainly more spaces than I expected.
I'd been aware of several of these lots, but a number of them were new to me, so on August 21, after acupuncture, I walked around, map in hand, and counted spaces.
Instead of seven lots, I found five. The municipal lot on Ellsworth between 9th and 10th is now Cedars Village (921 Ellsworth). The website says it's for older people, and construction was completed in April 2014. Nice apartment building. Parking lot had been listed as having 47 spots.
The lot on the north side of Carpenter between 9th and 10th has also disappeared. There is new construction on the spot, which had been listed with 75 parking places.
On the same block of Carpenter, on the south side, there's a lot listed with 65 spaces. I counted 53.
The lot on the south side of Washington between 9th and 10th is listed with 120 spots. I counted 82.
It's true that I'd just come from acupuncture, it was a warm day, and I was hungry. My counts may be off by one or two, but they're not off by 38.
The only lot where my count agreed with the map was the lot on the south side of Washington between 8th and 9th: 43 spaces.
An Improvement Opportunity
This lot is, to my mind, an interesting improvement opportunity. As you're walking on 9th Street below Washington, there's a lengthy plywood barricade on the east side. Behind it is a dead zone of uneven land where presumably there were once buildings. And behind that is the parking lot, occupying perhaps half of the vacant land. Philadelphians, unite! You have nothing to lose but your dead wasteland in the center of the bustling Italian Market.
At the very least we should be able to add 50 places and have an attractive frontage on 9th Street.
The municipal lot on the north side of Washington between 8th and Passyunk is rated for 120 places and has 74.
Finally, the municipal lot on Christian between 7th and 8th is listed for 90 spots but only has 27, plus four spots reserved for Zipcars.
This last lot is adjacent to the lot for the Fleisher Art Memorial. Perhaps at one time all of this was one lot, but that's not the way it is today.
So, as I noted above, the map totals 560 spaces. I counted 279, a little less than half of 560.
Those 202 spots down by the Acme are starting to look pretty good about now, aren't they?
Especially since off-street parking near the Italian Market seems to have declined in recent years. Remember, the map said seven lots, and I found five. Minus 112 spots, by the map's shaky count.
Who's Looking After This Mess?
This business of a neighborhood getting new construction, and parking lots being turned into condos, is predictable. It's happening around the Italian Market, it's happening down by the South Street bridge. And I think it's a good thing. But there's an obvious downside.
Tectonic shifts like this call for a coordinated institutional response. If the area has lost 112 public off-street spots, maybe our city elders should look at the old Moyamensing Prison site and figure out how to add 200 spaces. I believe the merchants would appreciate our concern, as would the customers. Me included.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Once There Was a Prison
About a block from my acupuncturist in South Philly is an unusual sight for the area -- a very large open space. It's a parking lot for an Acme supermarket that's pretending it's in the suburbs, sitting way back from Passyunk Avenue, with its rear facade on Reed Street. There are 202 parking spaces in this lot by my count.
How did such a thing come to be in a part of town noted for its lack of open space? Well, there's a plaque. It says this is the site of the old Moyamensing Prison. For those of you who have read The Devil in the White City, this is where the serial murderer H.H. Holmes was finally executed.
On the site there's also a senior citizens' center on Passyunk, with a really pretty garden in front, and over on Reed, behind the Acme, a city-owned lot that used to be for police cars but now sports a random selection of battered city vehicles, along with piles of rusting metal junk from road work.
The impression of a hodgepodge is locked home by the Acme store. It's a refugee from a mall, and it simply does not belong in a densely built-up neighborhood. The low, rambling building, the vast apron of parking asphalt, and worst of all the back wall of the store on Reed Street.
Across Reed is an old, tall, imposing masonry structure. The city's fleet management operation has repair shops there, but much of that work is apparently now farmed out to private contractors, and I think we're looking at an incipient high-end condo.
What will the future condo owners look out on? Well, across Reed Street, the Acme has essentially dropped its trousers and mooned the world. There are a few grimy loading docks, stretches of blank wall, and odd pieces of ground where the architect apparently gave up. This being Philly, some of these spaces are now being used, awkwardly, for parking.
This rear service area is standard treatment in the suburbs, but usually you don't see it. It may back onto a bit of woods. And there's often a chain link fence to discourage exploring. Here, it's facing onto a city street that's being treated as an alley.
In terms of urban redevelopment, the Moyamensing Prison site is a disaster. The structures have no sympathy for their surroundings, and they're wasting a lot of space in a tight neighborhood. This is particularly true of the parking lot, which is placarded for customers only, with a 90-minute time limit.
Have I mentioned the idea that parking is in short supply in South Philadelphia? And here is a 202-car lot which, when I pass it, is largely empty.
A Parking Lot for All
So, first things first. Let's get our head out of the suburbs and turn this parking lot into a real city lot, available to all. Charge money. Give Acme shoppers at checkout a voucher for reduced-rate or free parking.
If you're looking for an example of what to do, take a gander at the lot next to the Eastern State Penitentiary on Fairmount Avenue. Also, many of the parking garages around the Reading Terminal Market accept reduced rate vouchers from the merchants in the Terminal.
Maybe, if Acme was willing, even Pat's and Geno's could offer vouchers.
This brings me to who would benefit from these new spaces. Complaints about parking are legion in South Philly. If you listen carefully, I think there are two main issues -- overnight parking and the Italian Market.
There are a lot of cars in South Philly. Many of them leave in the morning and come back at night with their owners. There are actually spaces during the day -- except for the Italian Market, which is in my opinion impossible all the time.
Well, the Moyamensing Prison site is a block south of Pat's and Geno's, the beginning of the Italian Market, which then runs up 9th Street to Sarcone's, above Christian Street. It's a linear market, so walking is built into the experience. Parking at the Acme would allow you to take a leisurely stroll and look around. I'm particularly fond of the live chicken place. If your feet get tired, have an espresso at Anthony's.
And if you live in this part of South Philly and you come home late, and there are no street spots anywhere, the lot will beckon. Or if you're from Center City and you have a dinner reservation at the Victor Cafe, wouldn't the lot be convenient?
Pie in the Sky
What the Moyamensing Prison site really needs, of course, is a complete do-over. In Philadelphia, we actually know how to do urban supermarkets. Go to South Street -- look at SuperFresh, look at Whole Foods. They don't wear their parking lots as aprons. They wear them as bonnets. Store on the ground floor. Cars on the upper floors. Been done.
So let's rebuild the Acme as a three-story building with the store on the ground floor and the parking upstairs.
But wait a minute. Let's have a look at the Piazza up in Northern Liberties. What would happen if we took the Moyamensing Prison site and ringed it with buildings, and had a large open space in the center? Then we would have an actual urban open space that, with the right programming, people would flock to. Open air cafes, a bocce court for the senior citizens, maybe even a big TV screen where we could watch the World Cup.
This isn't really pie in the sky. All of it has been done here, in Philly, and all of it works. What it does require is some imagination, some teamwork -- and some leadership.
How did such a thing come to be in a part of town noted for its lack of open space? Well, there's a plaque. It says this is the site of the old Moyamensing Prison. For those of you who have read The Devil in the White City, this is where the serial murderer H.H. Holmes was finally executed.
On the site there's also a senior citizens' center on Passyunk, with a really pretty garden in front, and over on Reed, behind the Acme, a city-owned lot that used to be for police cars but now sports a random selection of battered city vehicles, along with piles of rusting metal junk from road work.
The impression of a hodgepodge is locked home by the Acme store. It's a refugee from a mall, and it simply does not belong in a densely built-up neighborhood. The low, rambling building, the vast apron of parking asphalt, and worst of all the back wall of the store on Reed Street.
Across Reed is an old, tall, imposing masonry structure. The city's fleet management operation has repair shops there, but much of that work is apparently now farmed out to private contractors, and I think we're looking at an incipient high-end condo.
What will the future condo owners look out on? Well, across Reed Street, the Acme has essentially dropped its trousers and mooned the world. There are a few grimy loading docks, stretches of blank wall, and odd pieces of ground where the architect apparently gave up. This being Philly, some of these spaces are now being used, awkwardly, for parking.
This rear service area is standard treatment in the suburbs, but usually you don't see it. It may back onto a bit of woods. And there's often a chain link fence to discourage exploring. Here, it's facing onto a city street that's being treated as an alley.
In terms of urban redevelopment, the Moyamensing Prison site is a disaster. The structures have no sympathy for their surroundings, and they're wasting a lot of space in a tight neighborhood. This is particularly true of the parking lot, which is placarded for customers only, with a 90-minute time limit.
Have I mentioned the idea that parking is in short supply in South Philadelphia? And here is a 202-car lot which, when I pass it, is largely empty.
A Parking Lot for All
So, first things first. Let's get our head out of the suburbs and turn this parking lot into a real city lot, available to all. Charge money. Give Acme shoppers at checkout a voucher for reduced-rate or free parking.
If you're looking for an example of what to do, take a gander at the lot next to the Eastern State Penitentiary on Fairmount Avenue. Also, many of the parking garages around the Reading Terminal Market accept reduced rate vouchers from the merchants in the Terminal.
Maybe, if Acme was willing, even Pat's and Geno's could offer vouchers.
This brings me to who would benefit from these new spaces. Complaints about parking are legion in South Philly. If you listen carefully, I think there are two main issues -- overnight parking and the Italian Market.
There are a lot of cars in South Philly. Many of them leave in the morning and come back at night with their owners. There are actually spaces during the day -- except for the Italian Market, which is in my opinion impossible all the time.
Well, the Moyamensing Prison site is a block south of Pat's and Geno's, the beginning of the Italian Market, which then runs up 9th Street to Sarcone's, above Christian Street. It's a linear market, so walking is built into the experience. Parking at the Acme would allow you to take a leisurely stroll and look around. I'm particularly fond of the live chicken place. If your feet get tired, have an espresso at Anthony's.
And if you live in this part of South Philly and you come home late, and there are no street spots anywhere, the lot will beckon. Or if you're from Center City and you have a dinner reservation at the Victor Cafe, wouldn't the lot be convenient?
Pie in the Sky
What the Moyamensing Prison site really needs, of course, is a complete do-over. In Philadelphia, we actually know how to do urban supermarkets. Go to South Street -- look at SuperFresh, look at Whole Foods. They don't wear their parking lots as aprons. They wear them as bonnets. Store on the ground floor. Cars on the upper floors. Been done.
So let's rebuild the Acme as a three-story building with the store on the ground floor and the parking upstairs.
But wait a minute. Let's have a look at the Piazza up in Northern Liberties. What would happen if we took the Moyamensing Prison site and ringed it with buildings, and had a large open space in the center? Then we would have an actual urban open space that, with the right programming, people would flock to. Open air cafes, a bocce court for the senior citizens, maybe even a big TV screen where we could watch the World Cup.
This isn't really pie in the sky. All of it has been done here, in Philly, and all of it works. What it does require is some imagination, some teamwork -- and some leadership.
Monday, June 30, 2014
An Easy Fix
There was yet another article about alternate-side-of-the-street parking in the Times this morning. I think I've been reading these since around the time I started to read.
ASOTS, as I'll call it, is a strange New Yorker ritual that involves moving your car once a week so the city can clean the street next to the curb. Everybody agrees it's a pain in the neck, but nobody can figure out a better way.
Well, there is a better way. And, as an added bonus, it involves various members of City Council taking a junket to Rome, perhaps accompanied by a Deputy Mayor or two.
I was in Rome this spring, and here's what they do. They have a small truck with brushes underneath, to sweep up trash. In addition to a trash bin, the truck has a large water tank, which is attached to a long hose.
There's a two-man crew -- the driver, and the hose guy, who walks between cars and up on on the sidewalk and uses the water flow -- it looks pretty forceful -- to push the solid trash up into the traffic lanes, where the truck gobbles it up. Meanwhile, the water is also washing the street.
I know certain people will object to the two-man crew -- too expensive, they'll say. I say, compared to what? Shall we put a price tag on the inconvenience of ASOTS and match that up against the price of the added man? Maybe it's time for a trip to Rome. I'd be happy to tag along as a consultant.
ASOTS, as I'll call it, is a strange New Yorker ritual that involves moving your car once a week so the city can clean the street next to the curb. Everybody agrees it's a pain in the neck, but nobody can figure out a better way.
Well, there is a better way. And, as an added bonus, it involves various members of City Council taking a junket to Rome, perhaps accompanied by a Deputy Mayor or two.
I was in Rome this spring, and here's what they do. They have a small truck with brushes underneath, to sweep up trash. In addition to a trash bin, the truck has a large water tank, which is attached to a long hose.
There's a two-man crew -- the driver, and the hose guy, who walks between cars and up on on the sidewalk and uses the water flow -- it looks pretty forceful -- to push the solid trash up into the traffic lanes, where the truck gobbles it up. Meanwhile, the water is also washing the street.
I know certain people will object to the two-man crew -- too expensive, they'll say. I say, compared to what? Shall we put a price tag on the inconvenience of ASOTS and match that up against the price of the added man? Maybe it's time for a trip to Rome. I'd be happy to tag along as a consultant.
Friday, June 13, 2014
The Great Bicycle Highway to South Philly
I finally figured out why the bike lane treatment on 11th Street runs only from Bainbridge Street down to Washington, instead of continuing south to Reed Street.
It turns out that the Great Bicycle Highway to South Philly does exist. It turns left on Washington Avenue and runs east on Washington to Moyamensing, where it turns right and runs all the way south to Snyder.
Washington Avenue
There is no way to know this when you're standing at 11th and Washington. There are no bike lanes marked at Washington; this is true from 11th down to 7th, on the other side of the Italian Market.
Bike lanes are painted for several blocks east of 7th, until Washington sprouts an additional, separate lane that looks a bit like an exit lane from an Interstate but isn't.
I've often wondered what the city's engineers were thinking when they laid out this stretch of Washington. The road is simply much too wide -- and, I have to say, poorly organized. There's a buffer lane painted between the east- and west-bound lanes. Would be a nice spot for a pedestrian-friendly median with curbs and trees. The spare eastbound lane could be eliminated and the open space put to use as open space. For instance, Jefferson Square, between 3rd and 4th, could be expanded to the north.
And there's plenty of room for a cycle track, as there is on Moyamensing, a nice wide street already equipped with bicycle lanes north- and south-bound.
Moyamensing
Moyamensing is so wide that the traffic engineers blessed it with head-in parking for much of its length. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, I think it's a very bad idea to stripe a bicycle lane directly on the rear bumpers of a bunch of cars parked head-in. The drivers haven't got much of a chance of seeing the bicyclists, and the bicyclists have almost no time to react when a parked car backs into the bike lane.
On 11th Street, the engineers were at least trying. There are a number of signs telling people to park back in, rather than head in. For 11th Street, I recommended a two-way cycle track next to the sidewalk,with the parked cars between the cycle track and the moving cars. (See blog post, April 10, 2014.) I recommend the same thing on Moyamensing.
Discoveries on the way home
This section of Moyamensing ends in a T intersection at Snyder, which has very nice bike lanes east- and west-bound. I gave some thought to heading west, looking for a route further south. But then I decided to bag it and headed my bike east to Delaware Avenue, thinking I would ride the bike lane there north to Center City.
As I approached Tasker, I decided to take a detour. I'd been to a Planning Commission meeting where there had been considerable discussion about Tasker as an important way to get to the river, and how access to the river was a key component of the master plan for this part of the city. So I turned right on Tasker and rode past the back sides of Home Depot and Walmart, expecting to dead end at some point.
To my considerable surprise, instead of a dead end I found a gate to something called the Delaware River Trail. I had never heard of this charming walk-bike trail, which runs through industrial ruins in the process of becoming gardens. (This involves using plants that work on concrete slabs, essentially as slow-motion jackhammers.)
Several piers are slated for renovation. They are intended primarily for fishing and sitting outside by the water on a fine day. (You can tell the difference between these two activities by the presence or absence of a fishing pole.)
When I go out on a ramble, I'm always happy to stumble onto something that's entirely new to me. Mission accomplished, I rode up Delaware to the cycle track at Spring Garden, rode the cycle track, then rode across Spring Garden to the Schuylkill Banks, and thence home.
It is getting easier to get around town on a bike.
It turns out that the Great Bicycle Highway to South Philly does exist. It turns left on Washington Avenue and runs east on Washington to Moyamensing, where it turns right and runs all the way south to Snyder.
Washington Avenue
There is no way to know this when you're standing at 11th and Washington. There are no bike lanes marked at Washington; this is true from 11th down to 7th, on the other side of the Italian Market.
Bike lanes are painted for several blocks east of 7th, until Washington sprouts an additional, separate lane that looks a bit like an exit lane from an Interstate but isn't.
I've often wondered what the city's engineers were thinking when they laid out this stretch of Washington. The road is simply much too wide -- and, I have to say, poorly organized. There's a buffer lane painted between the east- and west-bound lanes. Would be a nice spot for a pedestrian-friendly median with curbs and trees. The spare eastbound lane could be eliminated and the open space put to use as open space. For instance, Jefferson Square, between 3rd and 4th, could be expanded to the north.
And there's plenty of room for a cycle track, as there is on Moyamensing, a nice wide street already equipped with bicycle lanes north- and south-bound.
Moyamensing
Moyamensing is so wide that the traffic engineers blessed it with head-in parking for much of its length. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, I think it's a very bad idea to stripe a bicycle lane directly on the rear bumpers of a bunch of cars parked head-in. The drivers haven't got much of a chance of seeing the bicyclists, and the bicyclists have almost no time to react when a parked car backs into the bike lane.
On 11th Street, the engineers were at least trying. There are a number of signs telling people to park back in, rather than head in. For 11th Street, I recommended a two-way cycle track next to the sidewalk,with the parked cars between the cycle track and the moving cars. (See blog post, April 10, 2014.) I recommend the same thing on Moyamensing.
Discoveries on the way home
This section of Moyamensing ends in a T intersection at Snyder, which has very nice bike lanes east- and west-bound. I gave some thought to heading west, looking for a route further south. But then I decided to bag it and headed my bike east to Delaware Avenue, thinking I would ride the bike lane there north to Center City.
As I approached Tasker, I decided to take a detour. I'd been to a Planning Commission meeting where there had been considerable discussion about Tasker as an important way to get to the river, and how access to the river was a key component of the master plan for this part of the city. So I turned right on Tasker and rode past the back sides of Home Depot and Walmart, expecting to dead end at some point.
To my considerable surprise, instead of a dead end I found a gate to something called the Delaware River Trail. I had never heard of this charming walk-bike trail, which runs through industrial ruins in the process of becoming gardens. (This involves using plants that work on concrete slabs, essentially as slow-motion jackhammers.)
Several piers are slated for renovation. They are intended primarily for fishing and sitting outside by the water on a fine day. (You can tell the difference between these two activities by the presence or absence of a fishing pole.)
When I go out on a ramble, I'm always happy to stumble onto something that's entirely new to me. Mission accomplished, I rode up Delaware to the cycle track at Spring Garden, rode the cycle track, then rode across Spring Garden to the Schuylkill Banks, and thence home.
It is getting easier to get around town on a bike.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
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.
(A nice video with lots of suggestions for further reading.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
(A two minute video with a Dutch accent.)
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.
(A nice video with lots of suggestions for further reading.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
(A two minute video with a Dutch accent.)
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