This is this time of year when Penn students start moving out of their dorms, which causes temporary closure of several blocks of Spruce Street. This year, Spruce Street will be closed to traffic from 34th to 40th on Tuesday, May 12 and Wednesday, May 13, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., according to Penn’s Division of Public Safety announcement.

SEPTA Routes 40 and 42 will be re-routed during the move-out. Please go to SEPTA’s website for more information.

Here are some additional advisories:

• Access will be provided to the Ryan Vet Hospital.
• No taxi cabs will be permitted access.
• Vendors will be permitted access to enter the street prior to the 8 a.m. street closure.
• Bikes will need to be walked on Spruce Street while the streets are closed to traffic.

Penn police will be on site to assist with traffic flow.

A young horseman crosses 45th and Baltimore on his way back to Clark Park. (Photo by Mike Lyons/West Philly Local)

One of the urban cowboys who often ride in Clark Park moseyed through Spruce Hill on Wednesday, crossing Baltimore at 45th on his way back to the park.

Updated intersection at Baltimore and Springfield.

The corner of Baltimore and Springfield avenues has long been a notorious corner, with pedestrians heading to and from Clark Park, cyclists, motorists and trolleys all converging at one oddly configured intersection. Hopefully some work recently completed by the City of Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities and the Streets Department that includes a buffered bike lane and some redirection of vehicle traffic will make the intersection safer.

Several accidents have occurred at the intersection in recent years and residents have long asked for steps to be taken. The changes include flexible plastic poles that provide a wide protected area for pedestrians, allowing them to cross the intersection much more quickly.

Intersection at Baltimore and Springfield (archived photo).

The Indego bike station at 44th and Walnut.

The planned bike share station at 44th and Walnut is now in place, marking (for now, at least) the furthest west the new Ride Indego program will go (map). The last time we checked the station only had a couple of bikes, which has been an early complaint about the stations in West Philly, including the one near 40th and Spruce.

The bike share program plans to add another station near Clark Park. They are still working with the community to determine the best placement for it. We’ll let you know when we have an installation date.

After many years of wishful thinking, high hopes and false starts, bike-share bicycles will be unleashed on the streets of Philadelphia tomorrow.

The bike share service Indego officially kicks off with a “ride off” beginning at Eakins Oval tomorrow morning to launch the service. Tickets for those inaugural rides are sold out. But you can get a bike and do your own ride off tomorrow if you like.

An important note for folks around here, though – the stations planned for Clark Park, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 44th and Walnut near the Supremo Shop ‘n Bag and Mantua Haverford Community Center (39th and Mt. Vernon) are still listed as “coming soon” or “unavailable” rather than “active” on the map of stations around the city.

That leaves eight stations in West Philly open for business tomorrow. See the map here.

As was reported recently, Philadelphia’s first bike share program, Indego, is expected to launch on April 23, and some bike docking stations already started popping up in our area. Eleven stations are planned for West Philadelphia for the initial phase of the program, though unfortunately only as far west as 44th Street near the Supremo Shop ‘n Bag.

This bike share station is being installed in front of Penn’s School of Dental Medicine on S. 40th Street near Spruce.