This is unfortunate: The bike lane striping on Spring Garden Street, east of Broad Street, is set to take “at least another week,” according to a representative at PennDOT.

Spring Garden Street, through North Center City, was recently repaved and has begun to be restriped.

However, restriping the bike lane has not been done quickly. For several weeks, the bike lane has been a single stripe separating motor vehicles from what will eventually be the bike lane and parked cars.

Any idea when this will be done, @PennDOTNews? East of Broad still needs to be striped. pic.twitter.com/Pfxx7A4IVj

— Randy LoBasso (@RandyLoBasso) September 1, 2017

Currently, the Spring Garden looks more like three lanes for traffic (which is what it becomes at 6th Street, as cars line up on the right side to head south toward the Ben Franklin Bridge.)

PennDOT has hired a subcontractor to do the final line work.

“The sub-contractor has been working to place the final pavement markings on Spring Garden Street for a couple weeks as there is considerable striping work to be performed.  The operation is continuing and I’m told there is at least another week of work to be done before the striping work on Spring Garden Street is completed,” noted the PennDOT representative.

In the meantime, people are still using Spring Garden Street for their commutes. If you feel comfortable on Spring Garden, go for it. This is my route home, and (especially during the repaving period earlier this summer), I’ve used 13th Street to Poplar to 3rd Street. Here’s that route:

Why I suggest this route: Poplar is relatively calm as far as streets in this area go. It also is continuous and, if you’re headed into Fishtown or a section of north Northern Liberties, the alley between 5th Street and 3rd Street is pretty fun to ride through.

If you have a suggestion for another route for those who want to avoid Spring Garden Street, feel free to write it below and I’ll add it to this post.