Last weekend, PennDOT reopened the Chestnut Street Bridge, restoring one of the five bridges that connect West Philadelphia to Center City and vastly improving the bicycle connection. Closed since August 2019, the Chestnut Street Bridge is now re-opened with a brand new parking protected bike lane between Schuylkill Avenue and 22nd Street and a bike signal at Schuylkill Avenue.
This stretch of Chestnut Street is able to get a parking protected bike lane because of an agreement that the City of Philadelphia has with PennDOT District 6. The agreement addresses nine corridors that have, or are slated to have, parking protected bike lanes installed, enabling both the City and PennDOT to evaluate their effectiveness as traffic calming devices and to increase bicycling.
Chestnut Street parking protected bike lane between 22nd and 23rd Streets
So what about the rest of Chestnut Street?
Between 34th and 30th, there is a separated bike lane with no parking protection. Between 30th Street and Schuylkill Avenue, there is a 5 foot conventional bike lane. In the future, the parking protected bike lane should be extended westward to 63rd Street from 45th as per the ordinances that Councilmember Gauthier allowed to move through Council earlier this month. And, according to oTIS, the bike lane between 30th and Schuylkill Avenue will be reviewed to see if can be upgraded in the context of the 30th Street Station project.