New bill pits Spruce and Pine Street residents against cyclists ... again

Familiar skirmish lines are forming in Center City as a bill moves through City Council that would ban motor vehicles from stopping in the bike lanes on Spruce and Pine Streets — even for a minute.

Discussion of a new city proposal for concrete protection of the bike lanes also is generating heat.

Once again, Philadelphia cyclists are pitted against some residents of the narrow streets who say the changes would hurt their quality of life. A number of people said they need to keep their temporary access to the front of their homes for deliveries, to unload groceries, and also for elderly and disabled neighbors who have trouble moving to and from loading zones.

“The city’s plans to enhance bike lanes address the perceived safety needs of only one group of Philadelphia residents,” said Nicole Galli, a lawyer who lives in the 2100 block of Pine Street. It would be more efficient to force vehicles to slow down with more enforcement, speed cushions, and, perhaps, speed-enforcement cameras, she argued, making streets safer for all users.

“When a car or truck is blocking a bike lane, it forces people cycling to merge with faster car traffic, increasing the risk of injury,” said Louis Bartholomew, executive director of the Queen Village Neighbors Association, a cyclist speaking for himself at a Council hearing. It also benefits drivers, he said, because they don’t need to worry about weaving into their lane. (The organization has taken no position.)

The legislation, sponsored by Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and Council President Kenyatta Johnson, is scheduled for a vote Thursday in a meeting of the full Council after winning unanimous committee approval.

It would set a $125 fine for stopping in a bike lane in Center City, and $75 for stopping a vehicle in a bike lane elsewhere in the city. No-stopping would become the law citywide if the bill is enacted, but most of the attention so far has focused on the Spruce and Pine bike lanes, Philadelphia’s busiest.

Some of the public debate has been infused with the rancor familiar to the city’s long-running war over bike-safety issues and parking, which always looms large.

Some residents speak of cyclists cursing them, pounding on the hoods of their cars, and banging on windows. Cyclists tell harrowing stories about drivers menacing them. One man testified last week at a Council hearing that a driver sped up as he was steering his cycle around a parked car in the bike lane, pulled over and yelled at him, then punched the rider after he yelled back.

Roots of the conflict date to 2009, when the river-to-river bike lanes opened. Former Mayor Michael Nutter’s administration struck an agreement with residents that they could stop in the lanes for up to 20 minutes to load and unload without being ticketed. Parking has always been illegal, though cars and contractors’ trucks do it fairly often.

Supporters of the no-stopping bill and reinforced bike lanes say they back more loading zones to meet residents’ needs.

Spruce and Pine Streets host the busiest bike lanes in Philadelphia, running from 22nd Street to Front Street. About 1,583 cyclists a day travel along the corridor and 47,417 per month, according to a September count by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

Last week, the city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems held an open house on the proposed project at Thomas Jefferson University to show concepts under consideration and to take feedback. People lined up for more than an hour to get in; an estimated 400 attended.

As part of the meeting, OTIS asked residents from each block on the two streets to recommend where loading zones should go. A key part of any redesign is to include more and larger loading zones on the side of the street opposite the bike lane, officials say. One bit of feedback: Residents suggested having the zones accessible at night, when many deliveries take place, and on weekends.

To separate cyclists and others who travel in bike lanes from vehicles, OTIS is considering placing low concrete curbs along the lanes, replacing the flexible plastic posts there currently. It also proposes placing concrete planters near intersections to prevent cars from encroaching.

Lately opponents have been blanketing vehicles with fliers about the proposals, including on season-appropriate orange paper. The notes suggest contacting Councilmember Mark Squilla and asking him to block it.

Rifts have opened in some registered community organizations (RCOs) that have influence in land-use matters. Vocal opponents inside the Society Hill Civic Association, for instance, have been shredding Susan Burt Collins, head of the organization, who has come out for the changes. There is a similar schism within the Center City Residents Association.

Some opponents said they feel late to the game and their concerns are not fairly portrayed.

“They’re just running ahead like a speeding train,” said Lloyd E. Brotman, who lives on Pine Street near 22nd. “No one has reached out.”

Galli, the lawyer, said she knows that “quality of life” is a nebulous phrase, “falling into that first-world-problem category that ‘Oh, those rich people in their homes on Pine and Spruce … they just want the luxury of being able to pull in front of their houses.”

It has seemed as if the politics around bike and pedestrian safety are shifting a bit in favor of change, compared with battles past over improvements to bike lanes.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker committed to bike lane improvements — with neighborhood feedback — in late August after a public uproar, sparked July 17 when a speeding driver veered into the Spruce Street bike lane, snapping flexible plastic barriers and killing a young pediatric oncologist who was riding her bike there.

A 68-year-old man was charged with homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence after striking Barbara Friedes, a resident at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The no-stopping bill was introduced and, on Oct. 10, OTIS released preliminary recommendations for bike-lane fortification.

“What everybody is complaining about is the need to load,” said Nicole Brunet, policy director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. “The city is saying, ‘We hear you. How many do you want? Where?’ … We don’t have to be against each other.”

This story has been updated to clarify that the Queen Village Neighbors Association has no official position on the no-stopping bike lane bill.