West Philly residents perused maps last night at Penn’s Fisher Fine Arts Library during the unveiling of bike and pedestrian plans for West Philly.
Design consultants and city officials unveiled plans last night for long-term bike and pedestrian improvements that could include upgrades to the intersection of 50th and Baltimore and more bike lanes on West Philly streets.
The preliminary plan, which is the second phase of an overall evaluation and improvement of Philadelphia’s bike and pedestrian infrastructure, recommends bike lanes for Chestnut Street from 34th Street to the Cobbs Creek Parkway, a separated bike lane on Belmont Avenue and the conversion of Pine Street to a “bike friendly” street from 39th to 57th.
Some recommendations are minor and include the painting of streets, while other are very ambitious, including the possibility of installing “cycletracks” – a bike-only lane sandwiched between the sidewalk and the street on major thoroughfares like Walnut Street.
“One of the downsides is that it would take more of the parking off the streets,” said Dan Goodman, a senior planner at Toole Design Group, the firm assembling the plan.
The plan’s recommendations are based on field research conducted over the past year on streets throughout West Philadelphia. Data collectors examined pedestrian and bike traffic from Greys Ferry to City Avenue and from the Schuylkill River to Cobbs Creek Parkway. Their tentative plans, including maps, will soon be available here.
Last night’s meeting was the second in West Philadelphia this week. Both are part of the community input phase of the project. Later this fall and winter, Toole Design Group will review community recommendations and come up with a final plan to submit to the city. Phase one of the plan, conducted in 2009 and 2010, saw vast improvements to bike and pedestrian facilities in Center City, including 200 miles of new bike lanes and “bike friendly” streets.
But just because recommendations are in the plan does not mean they will be carried out. As with most improvements in Philadelphia, politics will play a big role – at least for the major improvements such as new bike lanes that could affect traffic flows and parking.
Small improvements, though, are usually included in the city’s paving plans. Steve Buckley, the city’s deputy commissioner of transportation, was at last night’s meeting to answer questions about whether many of the proposed improvements will ever see the light of day.
“Do we think every single piece will be implemented? We can’t guarantee that,” he said. “Right now we are looking for low-cost improvements that can be done with paint.”
One problem is that the city has far less paving projects scheduled than it has in the recent past because those funds have been designated for other projects like installing accessibility ramps at street corners to meet federal guidelines.
One low-cost recommendation at the meeting was repainting some of the existing bike lane borders to make clear to drivers that they are for cyclists. Buckley agreed.
“We have not committed enough money to those kinds of refreshers,” he said.
He recommended reporting fading lines to the Streets Department.
Possible improvements to the block of Baltimore Avenue include a mid-block crosswalk for pedestrian traffic crossing over to Cedar Park.
Toole Design is still accepting comments from residents for a couple of more weeks. Contact them here.
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