Mayor Cherelle Parker signed the “Get out the Bike Lane” invoice Wednesday, making it unlawful for motor automobiles to cease in any of the town’s bike lanes.
“Metropolis Council and I hope and imagine the No-Stopping in Bike Lanes laws will enhance security for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists as Philadelphia’s numerous transportation system requires safer streets for all customers,” Parker mentioned throughout a ceremony at Metropolis Corridor.
The invoice, a victory for bike security advocates, classifies over 35 miles of curbside bike lanes as “No Stopping Anytime,” elevating fines for automobiles to $125 for stopping, standing, or parking in a motorcycle lane in Heart Metropolis and College Metropolis, and $75 in different elements of the town. The earlier regulation allowed drivers to cease for as much as 20 minutes earlier than getting ticketed. Metropolis Council unanimously handed the invoice again in October.
“This invoice sends a powerful message from metropolis leaders that bike lanes will not be an area for vehicles,” mentioned Jessie Amadio, an organizer with advocacy group Philly Bike Motion. “Bike lanes are there to make it safer for the folks most definitely to die in a visitors crash, and that security shouldn’t be infringed upon by a driver’s sense of entitlement to park dangerously.”
Thrilled to see Mayor Parker signal the “Get Out the Bike Lane” invoice into regulation. This invoice makes it unlawful to cease, stand, and park in bike lanes citywide!
Thanks Council President Johnson and @councilmemberjg.bsky.social
— fifth Sq. (@5thsq.org) December 4, 2024 at 1:33 PM
Philly has had two bicycle owner deaths from deadly collisions with automobiles this yr, 30-year-old Dr. Barbara Friedes in July and 28-year-old Dominique Jones final month. These deaths, together with pedestrian Christopher Cabrera and others, led to stress from biking and pedestrian security advocates — together with Philly Bike Motion, fifth Sq. and the Bicycle Coalition of Larger Philadelphia — on the mayor’s workplace and the town. Vigils, biking protests, “bike lane events,” and a petition offered at Metropolis Corridor all referred to as for concrete obstacles to guard cyclists on the town’s bike lanes, beginning with Spruce and Pine streets, and Allegheny Avenue, in addition to a restoration of the funding that was diminished by greater than half from the Imaginative and prescient Zero line merchandise within the metropolis finances. The administration claims that security efforts are paid from different finances strains, not simply Imaginative and prescient Zero.
“I do know Imaginative and prescient Zero may be very close to and expensive to this explicit neighborhood and we’ll work and have a look at what that sort of funding will seem like sooner or later to ensure, as my mayor says, that the town of Philadelphia is the cleanest, greenest, most secure metropolis in America, with financial alternative for everybody,” mentioned Metropolis Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who co-sponsored the invoice with Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Alongside the Pine and Spruce Road corridors, the place Friedes was struck, the town’s Workplace of Transportation and Infrastructure Techniques has been engaged on proposed bike lane security upgrades and loading zone allocation, costing $4.8 million, to make the route safer for the roughly 1,500 cyclists who move by way of it day by day.
Among the many infrastructure proposals offered in a public suggestions session in October was the advice so as to add a mixture of raised concrete obstacles (mentioned to be low sufficient for emergency automobiles to recover from) and crash-resistant planters.
“We’re assured that this coverage intervention will deliver us nearer to a safer, greener Spruce and Pine Road and make bike lanes safer citywide,” Kelley Yemen, director of OTIS’s Workplace of Multimodal Planning, mentioned on Wednesday.
Some residents alongside the corridors have opposed the adjustments, arguing that the method has been too fast and one-sided towards cyclists, overlooking residents who is perhaps aged, disabled, or have younger youngsters and have to load from the bike lanes.
“Regardless of Mayor Parker’s and Council President Johnson’s guarantees that the voices and wishes of all residents can be thought-about in addressing avenue security on these blocks, that has not occurred,” an October petition to Metropolis Corridor on behalf of over 300 residents learn. “For the reason that Metropolis is already transferring ahead ‘full steam forward’ with the invoice and the plan, residents have been positioned within the untenable place of difficult the plan somewhat than contributing to its design.”
Yemen mentioned that each the “No stopping” indicators and the brand new loading zones alongside Pine and Spruce streets are deliberate to be put in this spring. Town has moreover launched a Non permanent Bike Entry Routes (TBAR) Information for building that interferes with cyclists.
Richard Lazer, Philadelphia Parking Authority govt director, added that the PPA will add a brand new bike patrol unit of parking enforcement officers, who will “see what bicyclists must put up with day-after-day.”
“Philly Bike Motion is blissful to see Mayor Parker’s sparked curiosity in addressing visitors violence and we hope this interprets to elevated funding for Imaginative and prescient Zero tasks in subsequent yr’s finances,” Amadio mentioned.