FOPS wins another battle to restore city promise
Driven by God-knows-what — certainly not facts, City Council, jockeyed by Council President Kenyatta Johnson, went madly dashing after a solution to a problem that did not exist.
The nonprofit, citizen-action Friends of Pine and Spruce has secured another victory in its uphill battle to restore sanity to city streets, and a mayor’s pledge.
Common Pleas Judge Damaris L. Garcia denied the city’s motion to lift an August 2025 injunction that prevented making certain changes that FOPS attorney George Bochetto argued the city had no authority to make.
One such change was adding loading zones.
Why were loading zones needed?
Because of the city’s moronic decision last year to prohibit even momentary stops in bike lanes to pick up or discharge passengers, or unload deliveries, the number of which has skyrocketed in the years following COVID.
In 2009, speaking for Mayor Michael Nutter, Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler assured residents of Pine and Spruce that they would always have access to their homes, despite the arrival of bike lanes. That promise was required to get residents to agree to bike lanes.
That promise was broken.
Why?
As the Inquirer reports, it followed the 2014 tragic death of pediatrician Dr. Barbara Friedes, who was killed in a bike lane by a drunk driver doing almost 60 mph.
Her death had nothing to do with being stopped in a bike lane, and I reported that the Philadelphia Police Department at my request had done a five-year review of Pine and Spruce and had found no accidents due to vehicles stopped in bike lanes. Not a single one.
Driven by God-knows-what — certainly not facts, City Council, jockeyed by Council President Kenyatta Johnson, went madly dashing after a solution to a problem that did not exist.
Having succeeded, like a dog actually catching a car it had been chasing, came the problem of “what next”?
How will passengers be picked up or delivered? Where will the trucks necessary to deliver goods to groceries and restaurants be able to unload?
Duh?
A shaft of lightning strikes, and then — loading zones!
If we forget for a moment they will reduce already scarce parking on Pine and Spruce by 30%, there’s one other problem: the Streets Department doesn’t have the authority to do that. So FOPS got an injunction, and a court has just upheld it.
The solution is as plain as Puddinghead Johnson’s head is thick — drop the no-stopping insanity, along with the long-planned and little needed concrete barriers for bike lanes.
The city is tomb-quiet when it comes to what size they should be (3 or 4-inch pills seem likely, too small to have stopped the drunk driver that killed Dr. Friedes) and the stones might be playing with havoc with emergency vehicles.
The city made changes nobody wanted, other than the odd lot Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. They have proved to be a costly blunder.
And resulted in a broken promise to the residents of Pine and Spruce. Who cares? All citizens should.
FOPS will keep fighting, and needs the support of allies. You can donate, and learn more about the fight, at the FOPS website.
