On a pleasant summer evening, Philadelphia’s biking community took back the streets.
Hundreds of Philly cyclists rode from the Philadelphia Art Museum to City Hall Friday night to protest Mayor Cherelle Parker’s inaction on road safety, after the recent death of cyclist Dr. Barbara Friedes, pedestrian Christopher Cabrera, and others this month.
Friedes, a resident at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, was struck and killed by a speeding vehicle while riding her bike on the 1800 block of Spruce Street, near Rittenhouse Square. She was the city’s first cyclist fatality of the year.
Michael Vahey, the man accused of striking Friedes, had alcohol in his system at twice the legal limit, District Attorney Larry Krasner said on Thursday. Vahey is facing a list of charges, including vehicular homicide, DUI homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, reckless driving and exceeding the speed limit.
A vigil was held for Friedes, and others who had been struck and killed by cars on city streets, on Sunday near where the incident occurred.
On Friday shortly before 6 p.m., bikers converged in front of the steps of the museum. Jessie Amadio, one of the main organizers for grassroots advocacy group Philly Bike Action, provided updates and instructions as people gathered.
“This is a protest ride for safe streets. It’s an opportunity for people who spent Sunday grieving at a vigil to have a more active role in demanding change in the city,” Amadio said.
Philly Bike Action was calling for concrete separation on the city’s bike lanes, starting with the Spruce and Pine streets, and Allegheny Avenue. It is also asking Mayor Parker to restore and increase the funding that was reduced by more than half from the Vision Zero line item in the city budget.
Information for a petition — in collaboration with Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and urbanist political action committee 5th Square — was also being prepared to present to City Council President Kenyatta Johnson’s office on August 15, Amadio said.
Shortly after 6 p.m., the group took off for City Hall, taking a circuitous route through Philly’s Center City neighborhoods, Society Hill, Queen Village and Center City. At multiple points the ride passed the 1800 block of Spruce, where Friedes was struck.
Along the way the group chanted phrases like “Concrete now; Paint will not protect us,” and “What do we want? Safe streets. When do we want it? Now.” Bike bells rang, and people could be heard discussing the routes they regularly took as they rode.
Onlookers cheered, waved and took photos of the riders, some even offered high-fives. A few cyclists blocked intersections from motor vehicle traffic so the group could cross or turn. Most cars waited patiently, some didn’t, and shouting or horn honking ensued.
When the group arrived at Dilworth Park at around 7:30 p.m., they got off their bikes and continued to the north side of City Hall, by the statue of Major General John Fulton Reynolds, still chanting.
After a few more speeches, they took a group photo from Broad Street, did a few laps around the closed-off loop around City Hall, and started to leave by 8:10 p.m.
“It feels good to take the streets,” Yolanda Gomes-Galvez, who lost a friend last year to a road accident, said after the protest. “But we shouldn’t be fighting every day. I’m pretty sure if you ask every person here ‘How is their bike experience?’, they will tell you, ‘Oh, it’s great, but every single day I have to fight for my right to bike around the city, and to do it safely.’ ”
Chris Gale, the executive director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, criticized the mayor for reducing the annual budget for the Vision Zero for fiscal year 2025.
When city council approved Parker’s $6.37 billion budget in June, the coalition expressed disappointment that it reduced the city’s contribution to Vision Zero from $2.5 million in the 2024 fiscal year to $1 million in 2025.
Gale said that the reduction seemed contradictory to Parker’s actions earlier in the year, when she signed an executive order recommitting to Vision Zero and its goal of reaching zero traffic deaths. Gale was in attendance when she signed the order.
“Yeah sure, the words are there, but where are the actions,” Gale said. “There has to be more protection for pedestrians and cyclists.”
In a statement, the mayor’s office pushed back on the idea that the budget cuts funding for pedestrian and cyclist safety, saying that some of the traffic safety funding was allocated to a different line item that still targets the same goal.
“In the FY25 budget, there’s a $1M appropriation for ‘Vision Zero,’ plus pedestrian safety investments, which are not captured by the Vision Zero line,” spokesman Matthew Cassidy wrote in an email.
“The administration did not cut or reduce spending on traffic calming and traffic safety. It moved the $1.25M out of the Vision Zero area, and into the Streets Department budget for traffic calming measures that previously were covered under Vision Zero,” he continued. “Mayor Parker remains strongly committed to traffic safety and has worked — and acted upon — measures to enhance traffic safety for years, both in the legislature, in City Council, and now as mayor.”
“There is $1 million allocated to Vision Zero and $1.25 million for the speed cushion and traffic calming program measures,” Parker explained in her interview with WHYY’S Studio 2 on Thursday. “And they are a major part of the overall Vision Zero project.”
Gale said it isn’t enough to say she’s still committed to traffic safety through other budget items as Vision Zero “is the office and the group that has been leading this charge.”
“And so, when you take that money away from the group that is doing that, it doesn’t line up,” he added.
The mayor also received criticism for not addressing funding for protected bike lanes during Thursday’s interview, especially after District Attorney Larry Krasner said that Friedes “might be alive today” if there was a concrete barrier on Spruce Street, where she was struck.
“The flex posts are meant to be a temporary measure,” Gale said. “We want to see bollards or barriers. Any of these types of buffers that will impede a 2,000- to 4,000-pound vehicle [from being] able to get into a pedestrian or cycling space.”
He added that the culture around driving and cycling in the city needs to change, in general, with people in cars many times acting as if cyclists do not have a right-of-way in areas where they do and being impatient when they’re behind a cyclist in an area where there is no bike lane.
“It is clear to me it is also a cultural issue in the city of Philadelphia,” Gale said, adding that he saw a much more safety-conscious attitude when he visited Seattle a few weeks ago.
“Drivers need to be more aware of other people on the road and that falls on all of us,” he said.
Since Sunday’s memorial, bike messenger Tali said that he has been placing and resetting cones on Spruce Street between 16th and 19th streets.
“Someone has to do it,” they said. “If the city’s not going to act on it now, then who else is there but the people to do it.”