West Filly Phuckups

I took a ride out to West Philly yesterday. Officially, it was for work, but I did a small bit of exploring just because.

My first stop was the Drexel University campus. We're launching a student laundry plan subscription service this Fall, so I headed out there to take a few pics and get the lay of the land, so to speak:

After I'd finished, I wanted to get a look at two recent bicycle infrastructure additions. The first, history's worst bike lane on Spring Garden St. that was installed a couple months ago:

To the untrained eye, it might not seem so bad. I mean what a great idea: two bike lanes on a one-way street, with a contraflow lane closest to the parked cars to reduce the amount of door-ing.

Unfortunately, this causes other potentially more serious hazards. Cars exiting parking spots will now be moving into not one, but two bike lanes, one of which meets cyclists head on. The other major problem is that when (not if) a car double parks (as you can see above), a cyclist has to move into oncoming traffic to get around them. And if you think this is an infrequent occurrence, it happened twice to me in a span of 2 blocks:

The second occurrence is made all the more dubious by the fact that it's a police vehicle blocking the bike lane. If you're in the area, I recommend avoiding this bike lane at all costs. It's more dangerous than Broad St. The good news is that the Bicycle Coalition has already begun to address these issues.

Before heading home, I also decided to check out the new bike lane on Chestnut St. Let's just say, the city has some work to do with regard to parking enforcement:

In all reality, it's not actually completed yet, so this isn't a major concern. This pic was taken looking east from 36th St. Looking west, you can see the buffers installed and the proper parking procedures in place:

Neat. Once finished, this will be a great safety improvement, one that took several years of planning and input from experienced cyclists, unlike the Spring Garden project. You can literally see the difference. I'd say it's a shame, but at least one project was executed correctly.

Now here's hoping the continued work on the 13th & 15th St. Bikeways sees completion...