The Bicycle Coalition has officially published the I Bike PHL 2025 Report. In the fall months of September and October, volunteers for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia took 90-minute shifts on weekday mornings and evenings, collecting data for the annual Bike Counts. This is the 21st year that the Bicycle Coalition has completed its counts to measure cycling trends in the greater Philadelphia area. Our volunteer counters tracked bicyclist behaviors like riding on the sidewalk or the wrong way down the street, whether they are wearing helmets, and if they were on Indego bikes. Counters also marked down perceived gender, the street they’re traveling on, and the number of E-Scooters. Historic BCGP data, DVRPC data, and Census data reveal highlights and areas of needed improvement in Philadelphia’s micro-mobility infrastructure to make our streets safer and more accessible.
Highlights in the 2025 Report
In December, we reported on our initial findings, with bicycle and micromobility traffic reaching its highest levels in six years. A standout location was 20th and Market Streets, which saw a remarkable 32% increase in traffic volume, which coincides with the opening of the Market St Bridge 2-way Cycle Track between 20th and 23rd St. This growth is mirrored in the success of the Indego bike share system, which celebrated a record-breaking year with over 1.3 million trips and the addition of 36 new stations to its network.
Indego Bike Share Continues its Relentless Growth
Indego started much smaller than its peer cities, such as Chicago, Washington DC, and Montreal. Over the past 11 years, Indego has expanded its service areas as far away as Roxborough, Parkside, Port Richmond, Hunting Park and the Navy Yard, an area of about 50 square miles or one-third of the entire city. Last year, Indege recorded more than 1.3 million trips, comparable with the bus ridership of many small metros in Pennsylvania such as Harrisburg and Williamsport.
New York City Surpasses Philly’s Bike Mode Share
Since our first report was released in 2008 Philadelphia firmly held on to the highest bicycle to work mode share among the nation’s ten largest cities. The 2024 Census Data has a new leader – New York City. While Philly and other cities saw steady or declining bike commuters, New York broke out of the pack, easily surpassing every other big city with a 2.6% mode share benchmark, matching Philadelphia’s high mark in 2017.
Much of those gains can be attributed to New York City’s focus on investment in its protected bike lane network. New York City has a huge tax base and can build major projects with its own funding, while Philadelphia relies mostly on state and federal grants to pay for big infrastructure projects. Like in Philadelphia, NYC has huge gaps in bike infrastructure in the outer boroughs; there is still much work to do in every City if we want to see a big shift towards micromobility.
Infrastructure Projects Moving Forward Region-Wide
The good news for Philly is that many projects are moving ahead, despite the fact that US DOT has pulled the funding on some of them. One example is the Chinatown Stitch, which funding from US DOT was rescinded but DVRPC, the City and PennDOT have stepped in to backfill funding for the design work needed to move the project forward. The completion of the Christian to Crescent Trail and the forthcoming opening of the Schuylkill River Trail Swing Bridge will create a new traffic-free route direct from Center City to Southwest Philadelphia, giving thousands of more Philadelphia residents access to the Circuit Trails Network.
The counts confirm what we already know: better bike lanes work. Streets with upgraded bicycle infrastructure show the highest gains. Contact your city Councilmember, state representatives and senators to support biking infrastructure and Parking Protected Bike Lanes.
Thank You Bike Count Volunteers
Many thanks to our Interns Elva Bofang Jiang for authoring this report and to David Graff, who assisted in the final editing of this document. Finally, we thank all of our members, staff and supporters who went out on the mean streets of Philadelphia to bring our accurate and qualitative bike counts.
Read the Report
The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia leads the movement to make every bicycle ride safe, to empower youth and adults to ride, and to foster a ridership that reflects the diversity of the region. Join or renew to continue that advocacy and education work throughout the region. More info here.