Council bill on bike lanes put on hold after hearing

The brakes have been pumped on a bill that would require City Council approval for bike lanes in the city.

"If people feel strongly that bike lanes should occur and they should keep increasing - and I'm not saying they're wrong - then what's the problem in having this public process?" Councilman Bill Greenlee said of his bill, which he held after a heated Committee on Streets and Services hearing last week. He hopes to amend the measure.

But Rina Cutler, deputy mayor for transportation and utilities, testified that the bill "may make pilot programs noncompliant with the code and is sure to delay the installation of bike lanes."

Introduced in May, the proposed legislation came nearly a month after the city announced a pilot program to install bike lanes on 10th and 13th streets in Center City this month. The Nutter administration has said that the bike lanes help control the flow of traffic and curb aggressive driving.

The administration is working with Council to establish a formal public outreach process, said Andrew Stober, chief of staff at the mayor's office of transportation and utilities. "If these people's worst fears are borne out, we will know that quite quickly and remove the lanes," Stober said.

Councilman Frank DiCicco said that his office received calls from people concerned about the bike lanes on 10th Street causing heavy traffic around a fire station on Cherry Street and Jefferson Hospital, between Walnut and Sansom streets.

DiCicco said that he didn't find out about the pilot program until after the decision was made.