Families for Safe Streets member, Suzanne Hagner, and Bicycle Coalition Policy Director, Nicole Brunet, with Philly Bike Action’s Demonstration Art outside the Vision Zero Hearing
On Tuesday, February 18th, we joined advocates, community members, and families of traffic victims to testify in support of the Vision Zero PHL program and ask for more funding, collaboration, and overall more priority from all levels of government. The hearing took place in the Legislative Oversight Committee led by Chair Thomas and Vice Chair Landau along with Council Members Lozada, Young, Phillips and Squilla. During the office of Transportation and Infrastructure System’s (oTIS) testimony Council President joined to ask specifically about the Vision Zero budget. He asked if oTIS had submitted a budget request for Vision Zero and specifically did they ask for $5 million (We are part of a coalition along with Philly Bike Action and 5th Square that have been calling for the $5M budget request, you can see the petition here). Despite Puchalsky not disclosing any information about the Vision Zero budget, Council President Johnson wanted to go on the record that he asked oTIS about the Vision Zero budget ahead of the upcoming budget season starting in March.
Chair Thomas and Vice Chair spent a good amount of time asking about work force development in terms of hiring a third paving crew, an annual ask of ours that is required to hit basic street maintenance benchmarks. The Streets Department responded that they would look into it. Overall, all the Council Members were really engaged and asked City officials to prepare budgets and timelines for making progress on Vision Zero ahead of the budget hearings in April. Below is a copy of our testimony:
In 2015, we went to then candidate Kenney and requested his support of creating a Vision Zero Program in Philadelphia. In 2016, after he was elected he signed an executive order to make Philadelphia a Vision Zero city.
This order included a goal of reaching zero traffic fatalities by 2030 and setting a goal of 40 miles of high quality bike lanes by the end of his term.
Since the creation of the program, the city has created a robust office of transportation planners and bicycle and pedestrian coordinators, expanded their work on complete streets, and now has an office of multimodal planning. Throughout Mayor Kenney’s two terms we advocated for a dedicated budget for Vision Zero, Automated Speed and Red Light cameras, Parking Protected Bike Lanes, more high quality bike lanes that separate vehicles from bicycles with physical separation and slow streets that protect all road users including pedestrians, bicyclists, people waiting for public transportation, and drivers alike. He introduced this budget line and steadily increased it from $1M each year to $2.5M at the end of his administration. This particular budget was cut from $2.5M to $1M in Mayor Parker’s first budget.
Part of our recommendations included basic road maintenance. The Streets department has historically said that a state of good repair for roads is to pave at least 131 miles a year. From 2016 to 2019 the city increased miles paved from 56 miles to 84. However, with the COVID 19 pandemic and the ADA curb cut settlement, the miles paved decreased despite the increase in paving budget. In the FY 23 budget, Mayor Kenney allocated an additional $30M to the paving budget line with the focus of bringing the miles paved from 32.6 miles to 60. Mayor Parker continued this trend by allocating $60M to the paving budget however, the miles paved have not gone above 60 miles. For reference, the last time the city paved 131 miles in a year was 2002.
I say all this because basic road maintenance is a crucial part of road safety. It’s also crucial to make sure that there is an equitable share of maintenance across neighborhoods all across the city. According to Council Member Gauthier’s Just Services campaign, there is a clear correlation between road safety, gun violence, and other quality of life concerns. We will often get emails, phone calls, and complaints that neighbors in North, South West, and West Philadelphia not only don’t have traffic calming but the roads in their neighborhoods don’t even have lines or cross walks.
Mayor Parker’s executive order set a goal of improvements on every mile of the high injury network by 2030. I want to know what those improvements will look like and will they put the safety of vulnerable road users over the speed of vehicles. I ask that Council continue to advocate for the importance of increased funding for paving along with not instead of the Vision Zero budget line so that improvements can be made as the roads are being paved all in order to not only save on costs but to save lives.
Another thing council can do to empower the Streets department and oTIS is to repeal the Bike Lane Ordinance passed in 2012 to add additional administrative barriers to building out the bike lane network. Similar to Council Member Phillips’ school traffic calming bill, giving the Streets department power to add bike lanes where communities want them and where it will connect to the existing network will not only increase bike ridership in the city but also make the roads safer for all users. Protected and separated bike lanes are traffic calming. They can be used to shrink the road way, encouraging drivers to slow down. Bike lanes separated from traffic also help improve bicyclists behavior. When talking about changing driver’s behavior, we are often met with the argument that bicyclists don’t deserve protected spaces because they themselves don’t observe the rules of the road.
Despite countless examples of driver’s running red lights, stop signs, making illegal right turns, speeding, and passing bicyclists illegally, bicyclists continue to be made the bad guy. There are a set of infrastructure solutions that council could advocate for to improve both bicyclist and driver behavior and the number one solution is protected and separated bike lanes. When there is a safe place to ride, people will ride there. When it is unsafe on the road, the cyclists will move illegally through cars to get in front of vehicles in order to make themselves visible. As someone who frequently rides throughout the city, I deal with constant harassment from drivers who don’t obey the law. For example, in Pennsylvania, bicyclists over the age of 12 have to ride on the road. If there is no bike lane or adequate shoulder the cyclist has the right to ride in the middle of the travel lane. There is also a 4ft passing law. If there is not at least 4ft of space between the driver and bicyclist, the driver cannot pass. Many drivers will speed up behind me or cut me off with less than a foot to spare while yelling at me to get off the road or get on the sidewalk.
This all being said I am, like everyone, a pedestrian and I understand the frustration of encountering people riding bikes on the sidewalk. If this is a concern of yours too, I implore you to support creating a new goal of building an additional 40 miles of bike lanes, create a goal to daylight intersections around the HIN, and help to advocate for the legalization of parking protected bike lanes on state roads, something only allowed through a restrictive pilot.
As you know, PennDOT owns state roads and ultimately decides how they will be improved. Consistently, state roads are some of the most dangerous in the city with more than 60% of all traffic fatalities occurring on them. We look to all council members to advocate to state elected officials and to PennDOT to improve the safety of these corridors. These run through your districts, they surround schools, rec centers, shopping corridors, and more. They create serious hazards to residents of all but specifically for residents in underserved neighborhoods throughout the entire city.
Vision Zero programs can work and have worked in cities across the country but they won’t work unless the City and State work together to seriously prioritize them through funding, community engagement, and updating administrative processes.
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.