Memorial honoring woman killed by drunk driver moved hours after its installation on Spruce Street
The city said it wasn’t done by its crews, and the memorial barrier was later recovered in an alleyway nearby.
A four-foot plastic traffic barrier was placed in the bike lanes on 18th and Spruce Streets on Sunday. Painted white and adorned with 12 sunflowers, the small protective barrier would not only protect cyclists from cars, but represent the people killed by drivers since the death of Barbara Friedes, a pediatric doctor who, in 2024, was killed where the painted barrier was placed while riding her bike home from work.
But just hours after hundreds of people, including City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, helped install the barrier during a memorial for Friedes, it was removed, said Jessie Amadio, an organizer for Philly Bike Action, which organized the memorial.
The swift removal led the group to suspect city crews may have removed it, sparking an outcry from supporters who contacted city departments and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.
“It takes years to protect a bike lane but hours to remove bike lane protection?” Philly Bike Action wrote on Instagram. “Drained and removed on a Sunday like it was the most pressing business in the entire City today.”
The city has said it was not aware of any removal efforts on its part.
Later Sunday, Philly Bike Action members found the memorial barrier tucked behind a dumpster in the alleyway behind Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel, mere feet away from where it was placed. The city contends crews would have taken it to a sanitation facility or other waste removal site.
The city’s Managing Director’s Office said it was unaware of any city employee taking part in the memorial barrier’s removal.
“We just need more time to ask every single person who might have been out there, but everybody who has been asked at this point who worked in that area on Sunday did not remove them,” a spokesperson said.
The office has been investigating since Sunday afternoon, checking with the Philadelphia Police Department, the Fire Department, the Streets Department, and the Department of Sanitation as to whether one of their crews removed it. The spokesperson said that no city department issued an order for employees to remove the barrier.
The Police Department reported back that it did not have nearby surveillance footage showing the area where the barrier was placed to identify who may have removed it. Police canvassed the area Monday to gather additional information and doorbell surveillance footage, a spokesperson said.
In Philadelphia, the majority of people killed in vehicle crashes are pedestrians and cyclists, according to recent PennDot data. While overall crashes have declined since 2020, the number of drivers crashing into non-motorists has stayed the same or increased.
Following the deaths of Friedes and other cyclists and pedestrians, the city pledged $4.8 million to install permanent concrete bike lane barriers along Spruce and Pine Streets in Center City. Part of this plan was to convert parking spaces along these streets into loading zones intended to give vehicles a place to briefly stop instead of in bike lanes. However, the neighborhood group Friends of Pine and Spruce sued on the grounds that the city had no legal authority to remove parking spaces to create “neighborhood loading zones.”
The city has since delayed the Spruce and Pine Streets safety project due to a 2025 court injunction. Common Pleas Judge Damaris L. Garcia recently denied the city’s motion to dissolve the injunction, and the project remains on pause.
While Philly Bike Action recognizes the need for the city to wait on legal proceedings, the group believes the judge’s order should still allow the construction of barriers as the injunction targets “ongoing construction” and efforts associated with proposed “neighborhood loading zones, or related restrictions on Pine and Spruce Streets.” However, the addition of “related restrictions” introduced ambiguity and has kept the city’s plans stalled.
“We can’t wait another two to five years,” Amadio said. “The barrier is not much bigger than the curbs on the end of the road and will prevent cars from merging into the bike lane and hurting people.”
