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The Spring Garden Connector Project has been in the works since 2009.
And nearly 17 years later, many Philadelphians are still waiting for the promised improvements for bikers and pedestrians along the corridor.
This includes Daniel Paschall, the Mid-Atlantic manager for the East Coast Greenway Alliance.
“Within this corridor, there’s at least six different neighborhoods,” he said. “There are half a dozen schools, and there are thousands of residents and jobs. This is one of the most important corridors of the city.
It’s right on the edge of Center City, but it doesn’t get the attention that other Center City corridors get. There are a lot of former industrial areas, and there’s a lot of green space, so it’s a mix of kind of everything that Philly has to offer. And I would just love to see the city fully embrace that.”
The project – which connects the Schuylkill and Delaware River trails as part of a larger, nationwide trail – aims to address existing safety concerns for cyclists and pedestrians along the road.
Although the road currently has bike lanes, increased protections for these lanes are vital, said John Boyle, the research director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.
“Paint isn’t protection,” he said. “And (Spring Garden Street) is on the city’s high-injury network, and we’ve had two bicycle fatalities in the past six or seven years on that corridor.”’
Paschall adds the new designs are essential for the protection of all types of commuters, pedestrians and bikers.
“Having safer crossings for pedestrians, having protected bike lanes for cyclists, and then just generally a safer area for people using transit and driving willl be much better and much improved,” he said.
The project has been in the works for nearly 20 years, and Boyle said bike safety advocates are ready for these designs to go into place.
First Deputy Commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Streets’ Richard Montanez says the organization has made major strides in securing more money for the project.
“We did get some major funding that we’re able to use to then finalize our design,” he said. “So we did start preliminary design this year.”
Montanez said the timing has allowed project stakeholders to engage with community members.
“The community obviously wanted a safe corridor, a bikeable corridor and a walkable corridor, and so we are trying to incorporate all those designs,” he said.
Slow progress
The nationwide East Coast Greenway Project is a nationally connected trail system that links states from Maine to Florida through a 3,000-mile route.
Spring Garden Street was selected as the Philly-area connector after a study of different city streets in 2009.
Paschall said the street is an important connector for both the planned Greenway and for Philly bikers and commuters.
“This project connects neighborhoods and destinations to the river trails that define the heart of the city,” he said.
After the street was chosen, the city took some steps to secure funding and put forth preliminary proposals.
A major milestone of the project in 2016 featured a public art installation along the I-95 underpass outside of the Spring Garden El station. Once dark, the new set of lights guided pedestrians from the Delaware Riverfront toward Second Street in Northern Liberties.
But the project’s main vision – which includes a parking-protected bike lane down the whole street and raised crosswalks for pedestrians – is still in the works.
Currently, the street’s bike lanes only have painted lines to separate bikers from cars – and many times, obstructions like cars parked in bike lanes force bikers to ride in the street.
Paschall said he is understands why the project has taken so long.
“It’s not just a trail project,” he said. “It’s a whole corridor overhaul. It’s a complete streets project that includes utilities and stormwater basins and new signalization. So the traffic lights have to all be redone in certain areas, and then the timing. So we get that complexity is definitely making this unique.”
Despite this, he said the timeline is still frustrating – and he is not alone.
Many Philadelphians say the project is not moving fast enough to protect those who use the road and bike lanes.
Spring Garden Street also intersects with several high-injury network streets, which includes spots where there are frequent crashes between pedestrians and cyclists.
Boyle said although he is sympathetic to the process required to complete the project, he had hoped it’d be done sooner.
“We’ve had almost 20 years of this now, and we were hoping it would have been done way faster, but we are in a spot where we’re moving forward,” he said.
Montanez said the project required extra funding that took time to secure. In the meantime, he said the Streets Department has refined community priorities even more through open houses, comment boxes and other public engagement.
“At the open houses in 2025, we got a lot of comments,” he said. “It has just taken us a while to digest those comments and take a look.”
Montanez said these designs also incorporate newer technology, like e-bikes, and the safety of all riders.
“I know we keep mentioning bikes, but we also have e-bikes, scooters, and people walking,” he said. “Even people who ride transit, eventually they get off the bus or get off the El and walk home. There are also those individuals who may use Indego bikes to get to their final destination. So we’re just trying to provide a safe corridor for everyone to use to get to and from their residence and their business.”
Other concerns include limited space for buses to let out passengers, limited spots for vehicles to unload/load and a lack of countdown timers for pedestrians crossing the streets.
Boyle said he wishes some of the project’s proposed design accounted for more efficient and safe traffic flow along with pedestrian and biker safety.
“Obviously this is gonna be way better than what Spring Garden is today, but I do think that the consideration for traffic flow and things like that have created some compromises that could have been tweaked a little bit,” he said.
Moving forward
For now, the project will still take at least several years to complete.
“We’re hoping to go into final design somewhere in 2027, then hopefully we can then do advertisement of the project in 2029,” Montanez said.
The city has continued to push back the date of the project’s completion – with previous correspondence saying the project’s design would be completed in 2025, and others saying the construction could’ve began this year.
Despite this, the project is still in the “preliminary engineering” phase. But, Montanez said this does give community members a chance to provide more input on the project.
“We do have a website available, and if the community wants to provide any comments, please do,” he said. “We are taking them into consideration as we’re doing our design.”
And Boyle said bike advocates and other community members are anxiously awaiting the next series of public comments.
“The last word we got from the city is that they are at the 60% level of design complete, so we’re just waiting for those public meetings and we hope that the suggestions that we put out are answered and included in the project,” he said.
Paschall agrees. He said he hopes the city continues to use their website to give more updates about engagement and the project.
“There’s a lot of information on [the website] about the past, but we would love to see a little bit more context,” he said. “We know these projects are long and complicated, but even a few sentences here or there about what preliminary engineering means, or what types of delays might delay the project or what final design looks like and how long will that take?”
This story has been updated to include comments from bike advocacy groups.
