Spotted: Bike Clouds, Green Zones
Our eyes are ever peeled for interesting sights and sites. Here are two bits of larger bike infrastructure improvements I spotted at Logan Circle last week:
I’ve been excited about the city’s new artist-designed bike racks for some time now. After a preview at the Flower Show and inside City Hall, I finally saw one out in the wild last week.
I was passing Sister Cities Park, and there along Logan Circle I saw a set of colorful interlocking circles: Ralph Tullie’s Bike Cloud bike rack. Center City District installed this rack, as well as another Bike Cloud on Café Cret’s 16th Street side. Rather than the sky blue used in Tullie’s prototype, Center City District opted for a Phlashy color scheme.
Margot Berg, the city’s Public Art Director, says we can expect more of the artist-designed racks hit the streets in the near future. Other confirmed locations for different designs include the Vesper boat house, City Hall, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Perelman building.
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‘Bike Cloud’ bike rack by the Parkway’s bike lane -
Bike Cloud near Sister Cities Park on Logan Circle
In even better news, it’s street striping season. The Streets Department has been painting bike lane “conflict zones” green – showing areas where the traffic patterns of cyclists and motorists must intersect. The dashed sections of green paint are geared at improving safety by drawing attention.
So far I’ve seen two freshly painted conflict zones: One on Logan Circle and another approaching the 5th Street underpass at Race Street. The Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities posted on its blog Monday that we can expect to see 36 conflict zones painted – including six on Ogontz Avenue, six on Columbus Boulevard, and other thorny intersections around town.
“The cost of the green painted areas is $9/sq. ft.; however, this cost will likely be somewhat less in the future since our contractors have realized some savings with recently approved pavement marking products,” Streets Department spokeswoman Keisha McCarty-Skelton said over email. These improvements are paid for by the Automated Red Light Enforcement program. (Read more about Philly’s $5 million in ARLE proceeds here.)
See something cool? Send along a picture via email, Twitter @EOTSPhilly, Instagram @planphilly, or to our Flickr group.
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