In a move the Bicycle Coalition has been advocating for several years, the City of Philadelphia recently announced it has hired a second paving crew to help pave our streets.
The paving crew will likely begin this spring, when 2018 paving season starts.
As reported by the Bicycle Coalition back in 2014, Philadelphia’s street paving is backlogged to the point of sad hilarity. Back then, we found the city had a paving backup of more than 900 miles and would need to pave 130 miles of streets just to break even with what needs maintenance.
Since then, the city has not yet gotten to 130 miles, though paving has increased. One of the problems is that the city has, until now, only had a single paving crew to get the job done. That’s not enough.
Good news, though: we’ve learned (through Twitter, after bringing it up with members of the Streets Department, OTIS, and the Controller’s office) that the city has hired a second paving crew.
We currently have two teams of about 30 each who repave and we are continuing investments in the repaving operations to reach the goal of repaving 130 miles of streets each year #AskKenney https://t.co/lLM34dmRUS
— Jim Kenney (@PhillyMayor) February 16, 2018
Paving is important not just because it makes streets easier to navigate. It’s also largely when paving happens that bike lanes can be repainted and infrastructure can be installed. Repaving is absolutely a Vision Zero issue.
We’re happy to have gotten this news, and will continue to advocate for better, faster paving of Philadelphia’s streets.