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Members of Philly Bike Action! (PBA) held a “pop-up concrete” information session Saturday along the bike lane on Spruce Street next to the Kimmel Center.
The event, the second in a planned series of four, offered free coffee and soft pretzels to cyclists and pedestrians passing by, as well as information on how concrete barriers could improve safety along the bike lanes on Spruce and Pine streets.
The volunteer organization was met with largely positive reactions from those who passed by. Drivers honked their horns — happily — and the riders who couldn’t stop rang their bells, fist-bumped the volunteers handing out flyers or shouted thanks.
PBA member Jessie Amadio admitted that there was one person who didn’t like what they saw.
“We did get a boo from a passing driver, but he’s on his own, it sounds like,” she said.
The goal of the event, besides making sure folks are fed and caffeinated on their way to the Schuylkill River, was to show what the proposed safety measures to the popular Center City bikeway would look like, and dispel some of the misconceptions that have arisen since the city began its project to upgrade the streets — particularly what the concrete barriers could look like.
“People were concerned that it was going to be a one-inch-tall barriers that wouldn’t protect anyone, or it’s going to be three-or-four-foot-tall Jersey barriers you’d see alongside a high-speed highway, which would make it really hard to walk across the street,” said Caleb Holtmeyer, founder of PBA.
Instead, what PBA would like to see is an eight-inch tall concrete barrier. Saturday’s examples were made out of cardboard and textured Rust-Oleum spray paint, so the volunteer group didn’t need a forklift to move them around. They were modelled off the ones installed on Moyamensing Avenue by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
Holtmeyer explained that the “modestly high” barriers would be enough to prevent vehicles from pulling into the bike lane or accelerating through it.
“The crashes we’ve seen, with [Dr. Barbara Friedes] and then the ones following where fortunately nobody was hit outside a vehicle, we saw the bike lane essentially being used as a passing zone, and that’s what we want to prevent,” he said.
Cyclist Audrey Lee paused from her ride to speak with PBA’s volunteers. She recounted how a day earlier she was sideswiped off her bike by a van just two blocks away near the intersection of Spruce and 17th streets.
“Fortunately, I’m fine and the bike is totally fine,” she said. “He was very cool about it. He pulled over, and we talked about it, but it was just one of those things where had the lane been protected or had there been some other indicator of the intersection — and had he used his freaking blinker — it wouldn’t have happened.”
Lee said she felt some “trepidation” returning to the same bike lane a day later, but that changed to joy when she saw the cones and safety campaigners.
“It’s something that I love about Philadelphia and it’s one of the reasons that I stay here, because I appreciate the bike infrastructure,” Lee said “It just makes me happy and hopeful to see people fighting and lobbying and organizing for better infrastructure.”
PBA’s first pop-up was near 12th and Spruce streets. Amadio said putting the second one near the busy turn-off from Broad Street also helps to instill confidence the barriers will not be a hindrance on the traffic that typically passes through that intersection.
“In the last few hours, we’ve seen ambulances, we’ve seen big trucks, we’ve seen FedEx trucks, and they’re all making the turns,” Amadio said. “They’re all traveling smoothly, nothing’s been hit. It’s really functioning, and it will function.”
Holtmeyer said that the next concrete pop-up will be in Society Hill near 3rd and Pine streets, followed by the final one next to Kahn Park near 11th and Pine streets.
Vision Zero, the city’s program to improve traffic safety, received $5 million funding In the city’s 2026 budget and $30 million total through 2031. The program also sets aside $5 million for concrete barriers on Spruce and Pine streets.
As the city began the first phase of its bike lane safety project in June, the residents group Friends of Pine and Spruce sued Philadelphia officials, seeking to halt the concrete barriers being built and stop the city’s plan for replacing permit parking with new “neighborhood loading zones” at sections of the streets.
In August, a judge ordered the city to halt signage installation, enforcement efforts and public works while the Friends of Pine and Spruce case goes through the courts.
Holtmeyer said the legal delays have been disappointing, but that hasn’t stopped PBA from trying to win in the court of public opinion. He said his main concern is public safety while the legislation is held up in the courts.
“My worry is that, by delaying this, somebody else will either be hurt or killed,” he said
On Sunday night, a cyclist was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Port Richmond, near Aramingo and Lehigh avenues.
