Who is in charge of fixing the Spruce and Pine bike lanes?
Pine and Spruce Streets in Center City have buffered bike lanes, but if you’ve ever tried to use them, you know that you usually can’t travel more than one block before having to go around a car/truck that’s parked in the bike lane. When I commute - generally between 8:00 and 9:00 on weekdays - it’s surprising if there is a single block with the bike lane clear. For most of Spruce and Pine it’s illegal to “park”, but totally legal to stop your car there for up to 20 minutes at a time. What is the point of even having bike lanes if you let cars block it at any time?
Current Parking Rules
Right now, if there is a sign that says “no standing”, you can’t even stop your car. But if the sign says “no parking”, you can in fact park your car there for 20 minutes. This is in the Philadelphia Code:
No person shall…
(c) Park a vehicle:
(.1) Within fifty (50) feet of the nearest rail of a railroad crossing.
(.2) For more than 20 minutes at any place where official signs prohibit parking.
(.3) Within a designated bicycle lane.
Philadelphia Code 12-913(1)(c)
I have contacted my City Council member, Jamie Gauthier, about similar issues in the past, which has been uesless. But we still have some City Council members at-large who haven’t resigned to run for mayor! So I contacted all of them via an online message through the City Council website, asking if they were aware of this issue and would consider doing something to fix it. I also ended up contacting the district council members for that area (Squilla and Johnson). I don’t know why I expected any of our elected officials to care, as I’m pretty sure none of them actually take the bus or or ride bike like a normal person. Don’t they all get driven around in taxpayer-funded SUVs?
Helen Gym’s constituent services representative wrote back almost immediately (this was right before she resigned to run for mayor), but it was one of the most circular, frustrating exchanges:
Isaiah Thomas’s apparently forwarded my concern to my district member’s office…?
Katherine Gilmore Richardson’s office said to contact the district council members for the geographic location of the bike lanes and basically explained that members at-large let district councilmembers run their districts like little dictators instead of doing anything that would benefit the city generally. But at least they promised to let the council member know a constituent voiced this specific concern.
Kenyatta Johnson’s office probably didn’t read my message that closely:
Mark Squilla’s office tried, and looped in some OTIS people, but I get the sense they have no intention of ever fixing this problem.
Questions for another day: who are these people who can afford to live in Rittenhouse/Society Hill but are so cheap the won’t just pay for an off-street parking spot? Why are they paying all this money to live in the most walkable neighborhoods in the city? Why is city council catering to their demands for a free parking spot when it creates a safety issue for the rest of us?
Councilmember Oh’s office just didn’t respond at all.
why would they go to the trouble of making bike lanes then make it legal for people to stop their car in the bike lane?