About a milelong stretch of 47th Street will be condensed to a single lane to make room for cyclists under two bills passed in City Council on Thursday.
The first piece of legislation calls for turning the road between Kingsessing Avenue and Chestnut Street into a one-way path heading northbound. The second authorizes that a bike lane will replace the southbound portion of what supporters say is a dangerous street for pedestrians and riders.
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The bills, introduced in March by Councilmember Jamie Gauthier (D-3rd), were approved 15-0, with Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke (Working Families Party-At-Large) absent from the meeting.
The proposal is part of a larger repaving and traffic calming project for 47th Street, which is on Vision Zero's High Injury Network — the 12% of Philadelphia's streets where 80% of serious and fatal crashes take place. It was initially proposed after a similar project to repave 48th Street, which took place in the fall. The 47th Street resurfacing is scheduled for this summer.
Bill supporters said Thursday that the bike lane would help them get around the city, including to the newly opened Christian to Crescent trail connector. However, opponents such as resident Theresa Feo said the plan would disrupt the neighborhood.
"This plan is not about safety, it's about convenience for a few affluent residents who want to feel safe biking to the Schuylkill River Trail," she said. "But we're asking: What about the safety of the Kingsessing community, an already congested, low-income, Black neighborhood? This plan reroutes traffic to our streets, bring pollution, congestion and greater danger for our residents and children."
However, Gauthier defended the legislation and said that her office and the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems did a lot of community engagement work before introducing the bills. She added that it would help the students at three elementary schools located on that stretch of the road.
"Any complicated infrastructure project that crosses multiple neighborhoods is going to have disagreeing perspectives," Gauthier said. "But what I will not accept is pretending like a safety problem doesn't exist because we have a philosophical disagreement on bike lanes or that we didn't listen to community feedback or that somehow reducing car traffic is going to make problems worse on an already bad street."
These bills now go to Mayor Cherelle Parker to sign them into law.
