HOW WE HELPED
McCormick Taylor’s design for these street improvements included signing, pavement marking, and delineation plans. Extensive coordination with the Philadelphia Parking Authority was completed to discuss the changes to on-street parking when adding the protected bike-lanes.
The improvements for 2nd Street, 5th Street, 6th Street, Parkside Avenue, and 10th Street were let for construction through PennDOT’s ECMS and were completed in 2021 with a construction cost of $500,000. The City completed designs for Parkside Avenue and for 6th Street and these corridors were also included in this same PS&E package.
- 2nd Street from Spring Garden to Race Street: the corridor required capacity analysis which showed that the second through vehicle lane is only needed during the AM peak period and associated signing was included in the project to account for this. There is also an I-95 off-ramp that required new pavement markings to address the mismatched alignment.
- 5th Street from Arch to Spring Garden: One unique design aspect is located just south of Race Street where the bicycle lane splits into three sections – one to Ben Franklin Bridge, one to the 5th Street tunnel, and one leads to Race Street for connections to Old City and the Delaware River.
- 10th Street from Spring Garden to Lombard: the existing southbound bicycle lane was upgraded from paint-buffered to a 3’ wide buffer with delineator posts. One section remained as sharrows due to the cross-section, and this project added green backing to the sharrows for higher-visibility.
- The City completed the designs for 6th Street Spring Garden to Market and Parkside from Spring Garden to Lombard and McCormick Taylor incorporated them into the PS&E set.
11th Street from Reed to Bainbridge: This is a wide cartway that previously had a conventional northbound bicycle lane and sharrow markings for southbound bikes; combined with back-in angle parking on both sides of the street and frequent truck loading created unsafe conditions for all users. McCormick Taylor developed a two-way cycle track protected by back-in angle parking. Modular curbs with vertical delineators were also installed to separate the bike lane from the parking lane. This corridor was constructed as part of a City repaving project in 2019.
- McCormick Taylor evaluated multiple designs to determine how to preserve as much parking as possible while meeting safety standards and goals. Reducing the angle of the parking from 60 degrees to 45 degrees was analyzed but ended up keeping 60-degree to preserve more parking.
- McCormick Taylor evaluated every intersection between Bainbridge and Reed Streets for vehicle turns and sight lines. Individual driveways were also individually considered. No single standard treatment was applied.
- 11th and Reed was a wide, open intersection with free-flow traffic. McCormick Taylor designed a low cost solution: a new pedestrian crossing and a new stop sign to calm traffic, get people walking and biking safely through the intersection, and better delineate space for all users.
Finally, 13th Street was constructed in 2023 during a City repaving project. A protected bike lane from South Street to Spring Garden Street was moved from the east side of the corridor to the west side. McCormick Taylor completed an inventory of all existing parking signs was taken to ensure congruency between the existing and proposed parking regulations. Truck turning templates were also evaluated for right-turns at intersections of concern.
