Some good news for FOPS in the bicycle wars

The Center City cycling saga continues, in and out of court.

The latest twist of the screw, and a boost for the nonprofit Friends of Pine and Spruce, was a huge majority, 23-6, of the board of the Society Hill Civic Association voting a $25,000 gift to support FOPS’ challenge to the city's promise-breaking changes to bicycle lanes on Pine and Spruce streets.

The Inquirer’s story calls what the city wants to do  “safety changes.” That’s subjective. It’s what the city says, but it is not a fact. They are, objectively, simply changes. 

The story also describes the bike lanes as “heavily used.” The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission in September 2024 documented 1,600 bicyclists a day, which means an estimated 800 a day on each of Pine and Spruce, more than the 2021 chart (above) shows. Still, that breaks down to an average of 30 bicycles an hour. Heavily used? 

Year after year, over the last 15 years, the percentage of Philadelphians commuting by bike has hovered around 2%, according to Census data, irrespective of the growing number of bike lanes. When it started, Mayor Michael Nutter set a goal of 6% in a decade. It has never achieved even half of that. It has never surpassed cult status. 

The current mess began last year with Council President Kenyatta Johnson introducing an insane bill to prohibit even momentary stopping bike lanes. Stopping had always been permitted, following a promise made by Nutter to gain Center City support for the bike lanes.

Johnson’s actions showed he didn’t give a muskrat’s fart about the promise made by Nutter, which was a promise made by the city to its people.

The “safety” argument is not supported by fact. I asked the police department for statistics, going back five years, showing any accident reported on Pine or Spruce as a result of a stopped car in a bike lane. There were none.

The other “safety” issue is proposed concrete barriers between the bike lanes and traffic lanes. I’ll get to that in a minute.

FOPS lead attorney, the intellectually smart and pugnacious George Bochetto, filed suit, arguing the city did not have the authority to create the loading zones it offered to allow residents of Pine and Spruce to get deliveries, and enter or exit cabs or cars.

That was the first line of attack. The second line of attack was challenging the to-be-determined concrete barriers.

The third line of attack, added to the initial lawsuit, said FOPS President Lloyd Brotman, is a challenge to the insane no-stopping ordinance itself.

Brotman said FOPS defeated the city’s motion to dismiss the suit, and is entering the discovery phase, which is important as the city’s plans for bike lane changes have been gauzy, probably intentionally. 

As to the concrete barriers, no one knows their size because the city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems either hasn’t decided, or has decided to not tell.

Not exactly transparent.

A City Hall source says OTIS seems to favor pill-shaped concrete blotches, maybe 3 or 4 inches high.

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, the small-in-numbers but loud-in-lobbying group, has been squawking for barriers for years. (I admit to occasionally ridiculing them by guessing what they’d really like is a moat.)

The Coalition’s dreams were energized by the bike lane death of Dr. Barbara Friedes. The Coalition seized on the tragedy to raise hell for bike lanes to “protect” cyclists.

The truth is, Friedes was struck by a drunk driver doing 61 miles per hour. No concrete smaller than a Jersey barrier would have stopped his car. 

As a result of a judge’s order, the city has removed the loading zones, but the no-stopping law remains.

This is the worst of both worlds, and some residents are blaming FOPS.

That is dumb. FOPS is fighting City Hall to simply return things to the way they were, under the promise made by the city, and which endangered no one.

If a car is stopped in a bike lane the cyclist has several options. He can wait for traffic to pass. Or she can carefully pass the stopped car, because there is usually room to do it. See above picture. Or they can use the sidewalk to get around the stopped car.

It’s not hard for an adult to do.