Imagine this: A car-free bike route from South Philly to City Hall
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
How Center City could become way more bikeable.
A visualization of the segment between Chestnut and Sansom Streets.
This Old City
This Old City
It isn't easy to bike directly from South Philly to City Hall (or the reverse). Swarming with aggressive taxis and unaware drivers prone to dooring cyclists, using Broad Street is a death wish. Take 13th or 12th and you risk getting tripped up by the trolley tracks. 15th or 16th still pits you against two lanes of cars. Then there's Juniper Street, a quiet road wedged between Broad and 13th that's rarely used by vehicles and runs from all the way from South Street to City Hall.
Turning Juniper into an exclusive bike boulevard just makes sense, and Jon Geeting at This Old City makes a thorough case explaining why:
The frustrating thing about this [why Philly doesn't have any dedicated protected bike lanes in Center City] is that Center City and South Philly have streets and alleys with no curb parking, some of which cars mostly don't use, where the right-of-way has not been given over to bikes and pedestrians. Instead they sit empty most of the time, just in case the occasional car comes along. Why aren't MOTU or City Council members trying to redirect bike traffic to the streets cars don't use that much, using green lanes and preferential right-of-way for bikes to direct cyclists onto those streets. One such street is Juniper Street between Broad and 13th, which runs all the way from South Street to City Hall.
As Geeting explains on a block-by-block photographic tour, the only people who stand to be annoyed by this change are the owners of the four parking garages with entrances on Juniper and maybe some NIMBYs. With the complex political maneuvering required to make this happen, we don't expect to see green paint on Juniper anytime soon, but here's hoping.
