Cyclist turning on to 27th and South St being squeezed by turning motorists (Video)

After a 15-month waiting period for the Philadelphia Water Department to finish a project, the Philadelphia Streets Department and the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability announced to neighborhood groups that the City will install the South and 27th Street protected bike lanes before the end of the 2018 paving season.

These protected bike lanes will provide safer and more comfortable access to and from the South Street Bridge, the most-biked bridge in Pennsylvania.

We recommend now — as we did more than a year ago — that the City install heavy duty traffic separators, like Tuff-Curb, on 27th Street to better separate fast moving motor vehicle traffic from bicycle traffic.

Tuff Curb (image via People For Bikes)

See our letter to Complete Streets Director Kelley Yemen from August 2017.

Bicycle Coalition letter re… by on Scribd

Given that the South Street Bridge gets at least 225 bicyclists per hour during the morning peak, it’s important that 27th Street get the best protection possible.  We’re recommending these traffic separators because they offer better and more durable protection than regular flex-posts.  A similar type of lane separator system was installed temporarily on the South Street Bridge during the construction of the CHOP Roberts Center building.

Councilman Kenyatta Johnson rejected protection along Lombard Street (which was addressed in the letter above with additional requests for Lombard St.), as proposed, which would have slowed down motorists on their way towards the bridge. Consequently, we think this kind of treatment on 27th is necessary.

We also recommend several traffic calming interventions on Lombard and South to reduce conflicts, per the above letter.