Bike lanes

FOPS gets a late Xmas gift from Philly court

Stu Bykofsky

05 Jan 2026 — 5 min read

A cyclist easily navigates around a stopped car (Photo: Inquirer)

A few days after Christmas, a late-arriving gift from Santa Claus was received by the Friends of Pine and Spruce nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens’ advocacy group.

Today it is announcing to its members that the Common Pleas Court on the last day of the year denied the city’s motion to dissolve a FOPS preliminary motion.

What was rejected was the city's attempt to halt a FOPS lawsuit to “stop the city’s steamroller plan to install loading zones and concrete bike lane barriers on Pine and Spruce,” according to FOPS President Lloyd Brotman.

In August, FOPS filed suit to stop what it called the city’s “illegal” plan. In October, FOPS said, in an effort to bypass the court, “City Council enacted new legislation and then petitioned the court to lift the injunction.”

Judge Sierra Thomas Street rejected the city’s move.

In doing so, said Brotman, the judge validated “what we have said from the beginning: Pine and Spruce deserve thoughtful, evidence-based solutions, not ones that are politically imposed.”

Brotman previously has said residents of Pine and Spruce, and others, regrettably were forced to hire superlawyer George Bochetto because City Council President Kenyatta Johnson refused to meet with them to discuss their concerns and reasonable solutions.

Johnson’s stonewalling may be a result of him being the prime mover of the insanity that started the chaos — his looney mid-2024 bill to ban even momentary stopping in bike lanes to allow deliveries, or pickups of residents using taxis or car shares.

Asked by me for a report, the Philadelphia Police Department said there had been no accidents, none, caused by cars or trucks briefly stopped in bike lanes.

The no-stopping bill was hotly opposed by Pine and Spruce residents primarily because it violated a promise by Mayor Michael Nutter. When he was seeking support for bike lanes, residents were promised they would always have curbside access to their homes, despite the bike lanes. The promise was offered in 2009 by Deputy Mayor of Transportation of Utilities Rina Cutler.

“We do not plan to change the current permit parking program for religious institutions [it has] . . . We recognize that taxis [this was before Uber] will continue to stop to pick up and discharge residents and they do today, and that residents will stop to unload groceries, etc.”

Alas, spoken political promises are not usually enforceable, and the current members of City Council, and the mayor, are so shameless they feel no obligation to insure that citizens can trust the word of their previous leaders. It’s like it didn’t happen.

In short, they have no face.

It’s not that they are writing off a promise made by a different political party. Nutter was a Democrat as is every member of City Council except sole Republican Brian O’Neill, who is too calcified to try to use this backstabbing of the populace to political advantage. (I am not overlooking the two members who are affiliated with the Working Families Party, which is Democratic in everything but name.)

In 2017, in a letter from Mayor Jim Kenney to the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, a lobbying group with some 13,000 members (out of 5 million in Greater Philadelphia), he pledged that while the Administration may develop ideas, "I feel strongly that the affected neighbors and other stakeholders have a right to be consulted before a concept is presented publicly as part of a plan.”

Even a wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth progressive like Kenney embraced the need for community assent.

Nice words, but City Council chose to plug its ears, and cover its eyes, ignoring a second mayor’s wishes, and provided minimal community input, alleges FOPS.

In Kenney’s 2017 letter to the Bicycle Coalition, he specifically mentioned that “no segment along the Pine and Spruce Street corridors in Center City is on the city ‘s High Injury Network.

“In fact,” “he continued, “the entire corridor ranks below the top 300 segments throughout the city in terms of injuries of fatalities." So why does Pine and Spruce get attention while more dangerous streets do not? asks FOPS.

For its part, the Bicycle Coalition ignores these facts and excitedly tries to amplify the very few deaths into demands for change of policy.

One example was the tragic death of cyclist Emily Fredericks, who was waiting to make a right turn next to a panel truck at 11th and Spruce.

Apparently unaware of the geometry of a turning truck, Fredericks pedalled ahead and was crushed beneath the truck.

An over-anxious D.A., Larrry Krasner, tried to charge the truck driver with wrongdoing, but the driver was exonerated.

A more recent tragic death was pediatrician Barbara Friedes, who was run down while in the bike lane on Spruce Street in 2024.

The Bike Coalition immediately campaigned for concrete barriers to “protect” cyclists. The forensics, however, showed that Michael Vahey was drunk and driving 61 mph in a 25 mph zone. Low concrete barriers would not have stopped his speeding car — it would have made it airborne, possibly killing even more people. The low concrete barriers — the city has yet to announce their size — might block emergency vehicles from using the bike lanes in, you know, emergencies.

Stats and Facts

The city added “9.8 new miles of separated bike lanes, cycletracks, and sidepaths making a total of 28.4 miles out of their 40 mile goal”: 2023-24 Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia annual report.
Despite the addition of miles and miles of bike lanes over the years, the percentage of commuters using bicycles has remained pathetically low:
2014 1.9%
2015 2.2%
2016 2.2%
2017 2.2%
2018 2.1%
2019 2.1%
2020 2.1%
2021 2.0%
2022 2.3%
2023 2.3%

(All numbers are from the U.S. Census Bureau)

When bike lanes were announced more than 15 years ago, the city predicted 6% of Philadelphians would commute by bike. No matter how many bike lanes are added, the city never achieved even half of the 6% goal.

City leaders keep yelping about been driven by data, and transparency.

Not when it comes to bike lanes.

Since they refuse to listen to reason, the only way citizens can be heard is through the courts, and FOPS has a superlawyer, George Bochetto. Even at a friends and family rate, legal research is expensive.

Friends of Pine and Spruce, unlike the city, does not have unlimited funds, and the city will do what it can to grind FOPS into the dust by outspending it.

FOPS is not just fighting for Center City. It is fighting for every neighborhood, every resident, who faces the bullying tactics of elected officials who have lost their way.

Really, no amount is too small, but let generosity guide you as FOPS fights City Hall.

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