September 05, 2024
Jon Tuleya/PhillyVoice
City Council introduced a number of bills Thursday to promote bike safety, including asking for a hearing on Vision Zero and ending the practice of stopping in bike lanes.
Motorists who stop their vehicles in bicycle lanes would face fines under a new bill introduced at City Council on Thursday.
The legislation was among several new bike safety bills that were introduced during the first session since the summer recess. Currently, drivers can stop their cars in bike lanes for 25 minutes before they are ticketed for illegal parking. Under the new bill, motorists would be banned from stopping in the lanes at all.
Violators would be fined $125 for parking or stopping in bike lanes in Center City and University; fines would be $75 elsewhere. Currently, drivers who park in bike lanes face fines of $75 and $50, respectively.
When cars park or stop in bike lanes, cyclists say they must move into traffic, placing them in danger.
"Some people who drive day-to-day may see it as something simple," said Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who introduced the bill with Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. "You may just want to jump out of the car and go into the store, but you jump out of the go car, go back into the store and come back out and somebody could actually be dead or severely injured."
Johnson declined to say whether enforcement of the the bill would require increased policing, but he said he's working in partnership with the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia Parking Authority.
Earlier this summer, bike safety activists submitted to city officials a petition that called for replacing "No Parking" signs with "No Stopping" signs along protected bike lanes. It also urged officials to add concrete barriers to the bike lanes on Spruce and Pine streets and Allegheny Avenue, and to end weekend parking in bike lanes. The petition had more than 6,000 signatures and 4,000 comments.
The activists asked for these changes after Dr. Barbara Friedes, a resident at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, was killed on the 1800 block of Spruce Street by a suspected drunk driver on July 17. That same day, pedestrian Christopher Cabrera was killed while crossing a street in Kensington.
On Thursday, a representative from Councilmember Isaiah Thomas's office read a statement from Friedes' husband, Cole.
"In the past decade, we've witnessed too many lives lost or irrevocably altered by preventable tragedies," he wrote. "It's unacceptable that traffic fatalities have increased by 58% between 2013 and 2022, with pedestrians and cyclists disproportionately affected. These residents are more than just statistics, they represent lives shattered, families devastated and a city that is failing to keep its residents safe."
Last week, Managing Director Adam Thiel said the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems plans to add concrete barriers on Spruce and Pine streets, relocate parking away from those lanes and replace signage, subject to community support.
At Thursday's meeting, Christopher Dasher, a South Philadelphia resident, said he believes all traffic deaths are preventable.
"The community has spoken," Dasher said. "Paint is not protection. We need concrete now."
The other new bike safety bills include a proposal from Councilmember Cindy Bass to create a bike lane on Maplewood Avenue from Green Street to Wayne Avenue in Germantown.
Bills introduced by Councilmembers Rue Landau and Thomas call for a hearing on city funding for Vision Zero, the initiative to eliminate all traffic-related deaths. Bike activists have claimed Mayor Cherelle Parker removed $1.25 million for Vision Zero, but Parker has said the money was reallocated to the Streets Department for speed cushions, a traffic-calming measure.
"It was never a cut of the goals and vision for the priorities of Vision Zero, and I reject that line of thinking or rhetoric," Parker said last week.
