Run of the Road
On roadways across Philadelphia, little white men on little white bicycles are appearing, as if painted by a prolific street artist — the civic-minded answer to Toynbee, perhaps. In fact, the pedaling stick figures (which come complete with the too-cute name "sharrow," a portmanteau of share and arrow) represent what will perhaps approach a $1 million, citywide investment — in teaching Philadelphians to share.
Philly, which is more than midway through completing a citywide bicycle and pedestrian plan, has already laid down seven miles of sharrows, and is betting big on their success. It plans to adorn the city with 203 miles of them over the next 10 years, according to the city's bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, Charles Carmalt.
Still, admits Jeannette Brugger of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission," One thing that's missing is education as to what a sharrow actually is. If there's no publicity or educational component, it's not going to be a widely followed law."
Of course, there is no actual law that applies specifically to sharrowed streets, which are generally highly used by cyclists already, but are too narrow for bike lanes. As elsewhere, the rule is simple: Share the road.
Sharrows cost about $229 to install, or $3,000 to $5,000 per mile. Bike lanes start at $10,000 per mile, and the reality of installing them can be much trickier: Just to adequately reconfigure the traffic lights for bike lanes along JFK and Market streets, which hosted bike lane test runs last year, would have cost $100,000. Comparatively, slapping down sharrows feels like a bargain to the city.
"The cost of an accident when someone is injured is incredibly high," says Andrew Stober of the Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities. "Even if you avoid just one accident, [a tool like a sharrow] usually pays for itself." A San Francisco study found that drivers gave cyclists a full 2 feet of extra room on sharrow-marked streets.
John Boyle, research director at the Bicycle Coalition of Philadelphia, notes sharrows don't work perfectly everywhere; for example, Ridge Avenue in East Falls went from a "pretty desperate" situation to only moderately desperate for cyclists following sharrow installation. But he supports the idea: "It creates awareness for cars, and it also gives bicyclists some guidance and makes them more predictable." And in a city where cycling is on the rise — the latest Bicycle Coalition study found ridership grew 6 percent from 2010 to 2011 — learning to share the road may be more important than ever.
Dog Days
Gentrification in Philadelphia's neighborhoods can mean many things: coffee shops selling $3 lattes or the invasion of gastropubs, for example. In Graduate Hospital or "South of South" — as the neighborhood association has dubbed itself — it has meant something else, too: way more dogs.
Aaron Pollak, a recent transplant to the neighborhood, learned the consequences of that about six weeks ago, when his rescued greyhound, Toni, was attacked by an off-leash pit bull. He stood by helplessly as a policeman pried the dog's jaws off his pet, who required nearly $8,000 in surgeries and follow-up care; neighbors and friends have come together and held fundraisers to foot most of the bill. In Pollak's old neighborhood, "there was a nearby park where you see the same people and dogs every day, and they know each other and know their boundaries," he says. Graduate Hospital doesn't yet have a dog park.
Horace Gibson, community relations officer for the Philadelphia Police Department's 17th District, says there was also a recent dog attack on a police officer. Now, the district has a new challenge: preventing dog violence in a neighborhood where both population density and dog ownership are on the rise. "We've had that regentrification, and there are new people coming in, and there's no place for the dogs to go to exercise, to be quite honest," he says. Gibson is trying (so far unsuccessfully) to acquire signs posting leash laws, and says the current enforcement plan includes chastisements blared via loudspeaker from police cars.
As for Pollak, he wants to see a silver lining in the renewed enforcement efforts, but really he doesn't. "It's a horrible thing and bad things happen sometimes," he says. "I don't know if there will be any benefit from that."
Editor's Note
When it comes to political donations in Philadelphia, companies seem to be able to sidestep rules disallowing corporate donations simply by offering affirmations that company donations are, in fact, really being given by individuals, as Isaiah Thompson reported [News, "Funny Money," Jan. 5, 2012]. However, among the companies he identified as taking advantage of that loophole, Ocean City, N.J.'s Tasty Braons LLC doesn't quite fit the bill. It turns out their $25,250 gift was in fact an in-kind donation to the campaign of Giovanni Campbell for Common Pleas Court judge; the company had produced a video for Campbell at no cost. It should also be noted that, as a candidate for a statewide (versus a citywide) position, Campbell was not subject to Philadelphia's campaign-donation limits.
