WCGN Safety Committee Chair Jeff Jones seeing the Wayne Ave to Morris St plans. (Photo: Rasheed Z. Ajamu)

On the heels of a call to “Keep Seniors Safe,” the city’s Office of Transportation Infrastructure Systems (OTIS) hosted an open house to reveal recommendations for the Walnut Lane Complete Streets project. 

Instead of a traditional presentation format, the recreation center room was set up with eight different stations, with information on boards about the project, and an accompanying rep to talk about what you’re seeing. 

Attendees streamed through the free-flow format, gaining the information they sought. 

Six key areas along the road were presented, including (1) Henry Ave, (2) the bridge, (3) the roundabout, (4) Blue Bell Park/Wissahickon Avenue, (5) Wissahickon Avenue/Trailhead, and (6) Wayne Avenue to Morris Street. 

While the first three only included one set of designs, the latter three included two options each for attendees to consider which was better. The options included:

Blue Bell Park/Wissahickon Avenue

• OPTION ONE: Create a new sidewalk AND a two-way separated bikeway
  • 6’ wide sidewalk, separate from bikes
  • Two-way street-level bike lane, separated with concrete from the travel lane
  • No parking on the south side of the street, parking remains on the north side
• OPTION TWO: Create a shared-use path
  • Provides a 10-foot sidewalk-level shared-use path to be used by people walking and biking
  • Maintains on-street parking on both sides of the street
  • No separate sidewalk for pedestrians

Wissahickon Avenue/Trailhead

• OPTION 1: Adding a shared-use path on Wissahickon Avenue
  • Provides a direct, continuous grade-separated shared use path for people walking and biking from Walnut Lane to and from RittenhouseTown Lane
  • Removes one block of on-street parking on the east side of Wissahickon Avenue, preserves some parking on the west side of the street
  • Left turn arrow at Walnut and Wissahickon, making it easier for drivers to turn, but may result in traffic delays
• OPTION 2: No direct bike connection from Walnut, preserves parking on Wissahickon
  • Add signage and sharrows along Hermit Lane, Bridget Street, and Daniel Street as a bike connection to Walnut Lane
  • No changes to Wissahickon Avenue (Walnut Lane – Hermit Lane), to preserve parking on both sides of the street
  • No direct bike connection between Wissahickon & Walnut creates a gap between Walnut & Hermit
  • Left turn arrow at Walnut and Wissahickon — this will make it easier for drivers to turn, but may result in more traffic delays

Wayne Avenue to Morris Street

• OPTION 1 – Two-way separated bikeway, signal, and bus improvements at Morris Street
  • A separated bike facility replaces parking on the south side of the street; parking would be preserved on the north
  • Relocate the traffic signal and bus stop from Tupelhocken to Morris Street, adding a bus boarding island
  • Speed slots added
    • Speed slots are long, gently raised sections that slow cars to the speed limit while allowing emergency vehicles to pass smoothly, unlike speed bumps, which sharply slow all vehicles. Read more about them.
• OPTION 2 – No changes to bike lanes or parking, relocate the signal and bus stop to Morris Street
  • Keeps painted bike lanes, physical separation
  • Relocate the traffic signal and bus stop from Tupelhocken to Morris Street, adding a bus boarding island
  • Preserves on-street parking on both sides of the street
  • Speed slots added

Before exiting, neighbors were able to give feedback for the latter three options, giving sentiment on which they felt was best. 

Jeff Jones of West Central Germantown Neighbors attended the open house and thought the plan was overall solid, but made it clear that there are safety measures that need to be addressed now. 

He particularly named a functioning stoplight at Walnut Lane and Morris Street. 

“That would be a good immediate, low-cost first step in providing traffic safety as they work on the long-planned items in their plan,” he said.

Suzanne Ponsen, WCGN’s president, also thought the plans were fine and echoed Jones’ sentiments around a very dense situation. She raises another valid point, though.

“The reality is that they don’t have the money yet to get it completed now,” Ponsen said.

According to Lydia Kenselaar, the Complete Streets manager at the Office of Transportation & Infrastructure Systems, there are no dates for these plans to be actualized, as there is still a need to secure funds to do this project.

“Without funding secured, what’s the point?” asked Julie Stapleton Carroll, also representing WCGN, who also thought the plans were good, but lacked the most essential thing to enact it.

As reported, the open house happened at the Kendrick Recreation Center in Roxborough, to the dismay of the residents nearby Morris Street and Walnut Lane. They felt this engagement should have been closer to the problem site. However, some folks did make it over on Tuesday night.

Kensalaar lended an apology to the residents of the Four Freedoms House and other nearby residents, saying it wasn’t an intentional slight, but rather that they’ve been working to plan for a specific date and that the location chosen best accommodated them.

She also mentions that they’ll be at Historic RittenhouseTown’s TownFair on Saturday, May 31st, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., tabling, where folks can stop by and ask questions. Kensalaar also says other reps are working with FFH to set up dates for a meeting.

“We’re doing everything we can to push it forward,” Kensalaar said.

Neighbors can see the full boards presented at Tuesday’s open house at the project’s dedicated webpage on the city’s website. For questions, contact the Project Coordinator, Jacob Elliott, at jacob.elliott@phila.gov.

This story was updated on May 16 at 8:46 a.m. to include Lydia Kenselaar’s positioning on this project, which we had failed to do before. We apologize for this!