Cyclists who regularly ride on the Market Street bridge over the Schuylkill River have mixed feelings about a new two-way bike lane planned for the route.
On one hand, the project promises to provide safer passage across the bridge. Currently cyclists have to ride in often heavy traffic or go (illegally) onto the sidewalk. The bikeway will be separated from cars with a line of concrete “pills,” similar to curbing, that are topped with flex posts.
Concrete separation is rare in Philadelphia, and advocates have been demanding it following several car crashes that have killed bicyclists.
“We’re very excited to see PennDOT do concrete protection on the bridge, and we look forward to seeing that treatment used on more bridges,” said Nicole Brunet, policy director at the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.
But some riders say they’re disappointed that the new lane will be on the south side of the bridge.
Sawyer Morgan, an energy policy analyst who lives in East Passyunk and often bikes around the city, called it “a confusing decision” because the new bikeway won’t line up with the lane layout just to the east.
“The existing bike lane on Market Street that extends from 15th Street to 23rd Street is on the north side,” he said. “While those lanes already end abruptly at 23rd, forcing cyclists into traffic, forcing them to cross the street to the south side is also less safe.”
“At the west end of the bridge, cyclists going to 30th Street Station or continuing west on Market would just have to cross the street again back to the north,” he added.
Morgan also wondered whether there had been any opportunity for public input on the lane design.
We got in touch with PennDOT, which will install the bike lane as part of a larger bridge rehab project, and the city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (OTIS), which designed the bike lane. Here’s what they said.
New concrete in four years
PennDOT’s $149 million project will partially demolish and rebuild the bridge that carries Market Street over the Amtrak tracks and I-76 on the west side of the river, and the Schuylkill River Trail and CSX Railroad tracks on the east side in Center City.
Initial utility work begins this month and the bridge will occasionally be closed overnight. The span will be completely closed to car traffic from August 2026 to about October 2027. It will remain open to pedestrians and cyclists during that time, but they will be encouraged to use other bridges.
The bridge will largely look the same when all the work is done, around four years from now, per PennDOT. But it will gain some new features, including the bike lane with concrete separators, which will be connected “to the existing bicycle facilities at 23rd Street,” the agency says.
That refers to the two-way bike lane on the north side of Market, which runs between 20th and 23rd streets. (East of 20th, there’s a one-way eastbound lane.)
A bicycle signal will be installed at Market and Schuylkill Avenue West, on the span’s west end.
As part of the project, PennDOT will also add concrete to the Walnut Street bridge’s bike lane. Riding on that bridge is currently “very scary” because cars turn from the roadway directly onto an on-ramp to I-76, Brunet said.
PennDOT referred questions about the Market Street bike lane to OTIS, which came up with the design.
Avoiding heavy driver turns
OTIS officials say they decided to put the lane on the south side of Market Street to provide direct access to the Schuylkill River Trail ramp. The long ramp descends from the south-side sidewalk down to the riverbank.
“In addition, the bikeway location on the south side avoids heavy driver turns from both east and west on Market Street to Schuylkill Avenue to access 30th Street Station and the I-76 ramps,” a spokesperson said.
There was no public input process. OTIS “thoroughly analyzed signal timing, movement of pedestrians, bikers and drivers, and access to and from major biking destinations to get to this decision,” the agency said, and consulted with the Bicycle Coalition and Philly Bike Action.
Brunet said her group generally agrees with the decision, because the Market/Schuylkill intersection next to 30th Street Station is “very dangerous.” In October 2023, a woman walking in that stretch of Schuylkill Avenue was struck and killed by a car.
“Taking that into account is good, and then having the trail access as well — the south side of the intersection is just much more tame,” Brunet said.
OTIS is also working on a plan to continue the two-lane bikeway westward on the south side of Market, from Schuylkill Avenue onto 30th Street, the agency said. That lane would connect to another planned two-way bikeway on 30th, between Market and Walnut streets.
One lane, two lanes, three lanes?
However, Morgan, Brunet and other cyclists said they still have concerns about the proposed setup at Market and 23rd streets.
When a westbound cyclist arrives there, “somehow you’ll [have to] get all the way to the south side of the street,” Brunet said.
“This design forces riders to wait two light cycles to cross the street in both directions onto the next block of Market Street and across the bridge,” Morgan said. “And if they want to continue on Market Street, they would have to wait for those light cycles again to cross the street back in the other direction.”
OTIS and PennDOT should instead install one-way bike lanes on both sides of the bridge, he said, and have cyclists cross Schuylkill Avenue with traffic, much as they do at many other intersections. He said building a north-side lane would create a “hassle” with existing parking spots along the road, but said the bridge’s wide sidewalks could be narrowed to make room for bike lanes on both sides.
Brunet said a “cool” solution to the crossover issue would be to have traffic lights that create a signalized scramble at 23rd and Market. That’s a period in the light cycle when cars are barred from entering the intersection from any direction, and pedestrians and bikes are allowed to cross horizontally or diagonally.
Yet even that solution wouldn’t solve all of the area’s bike lane problems.
“Another thing that’s really weird is if you’re coming up the 22nd Street bike lane, you’ll have to cross the street to the north side, ride the bike lane for one block and then go back to the south side,” she said. “I just think that bicyclists are not going to do that, because it’s not intuitive.”
“I’m going to guess that the riders are going to just go on the sidewalk for two blocks,” she said.
The city could theoretically add another bike lane on the south side of the street from 22nd to 23rd, running opposite the direction of traffic, but she said it would be very unusual to have a two-way and a one-way bike lane on the same stretch of road. It would also require removing curbside parking spots or a car traffic lane.
More concrete to come
Brunet noted that the planned protected bikeway comes out of a longer ongoing discussion between advocates and PennDOT.
The Bike Coalition had initially asked for flex posts on Market Street, but PennDOT said drilling into the bridge would allow water penetration that could damage the structure, she said.
After the coalition pointed out that the Chestnut Street bridge already has such posts, PennDOT came back with the plan for concrete pills with posts on top.
The plans for Market and Walnut streets give advocates hope that eventually the city will follow PennDOT’s lead and install concrete separators on the South Street bridge as well, Brunet said.
Concrete protection has become a rallying cry for bike safety advocates since the death of cyclist Barbara Friedes in a crash on Spruce Street last year. OTIS subsequently came up with a plan to install separators on the heavily used Spruce and Pine bike lanes.
Editor’s note: The story has been corrected to note that the city owns the South Street bridge.
