Spring Garden Street Connector

The  Spring Garden Street Connector Project  includes a traffic-separated bike and pedestrian facility, known as the Spring Garden Street Greenway (SGSG), a planned segment of the  East Coast Greenway  (ECG) in Philadelphia along the 3,000-mile, traffic-separated biking and walking route in development from Maine to Florida, linking 25 cities and 450 communities.

When complete, the ECG will connect people off-road from Philadelphia to Trenton, New York City, and Boston to the north; and Wilmington, Baltimore, and Washington, DC to the south.

The ECG is over one third complete nationally, and over halfway complete in the Delaware River Valley, tying together parts of major trails like the D&R Canal Towpath, the D&L Trail, the Schuylkill River Trail, the Cobbs Creek Trail, and the Jack A. Markell Trail.

In Philadelphia the ECG crosses Center City via Spring Garden Street on the planned segment, the Spring Garden Street Greenway (SGSG). It will link the Schuylkill River Trail to the Delaware River Trail.

The SGSG is part of greater Philadelphia's  Circuit Trails  network of over 800 miles. To accelerate the network's completion, The Circuit Trails Coalition set a goal of 500 miles by 2025 and formed county-based Action Teams. Philly's goal is to complete the SGSG by 2025, as promised by Mayor Kenney in  Connect: Philadelphia’s Strategic Transportation Plan  (page 47).

The Spring Garden Street Greenway has been in various stages of planning since 2009, when the Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) led a Center City Greenway Feasibility Study that concluded Spring Garden Street was the best alignment across Center City. PEC followed up with the project, " The Reimagined Spring Garden Street Greenway ," which included extensive public engagement, a pop-up protected bike lane demonstration event, and a  concept study in 2013 .

Additionally, the City of Philadelphia has  $800k of grant funding  to complete preliminary design work ($400k from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s (DVRPC) Regional Trail Fund matching a $400,000 grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources). However, additional funding will be needed to complete design and construction.

In 2020, The City of Philadelphia advanced the Spring Garden Street Greenway forward with its " Spring Garden Street Improvement Project ", which included a traffic-separated bikeway as part of its scope, along with improvements for all other modes and green stormwater infrastructure.

Check out the City's full  results of the public engagement here , summarized below.

Thank you to the over 1,100 people who signed onto the the Philadelphia Action Team's petition for full funding of the Spring Garden Street Greenway's final design and construction (updated Summer 2022)! This included calling on City leaders to submit the project for Federal funding by signing the petition.

NOTE: The East Coast Greenway Alliance and Circuit Trails Coalition prefer the curbside alignment with a pair of parking-protected bikeways that are continuous for the entire corridor, to maximize access, directness, and intuitiveness of the user experience. Furthermore, to achieve a truly comfortable and safe Greenway, the bikeway should be integrated with other separate space for transit users, pick-up / drop-off zones, and prioritized over turning vehicles along with pedestrian movements across shorter crossing distances made possible by bulbouts at every intersection.

As mentioned above in the results of the City's public engagement, these design elements are fully supported by the vast majority of those who participated. More details provided in the sections below: "Curb-Separated Bikeway" and "Example Bikeways".

Thanks to the support of community residents, neighborhood organizations, and advocates, the City of Philadelphia and its partners took a  major step forward  in funding the Spring Garden Connector project, with $31 million committed to final design and the first phase of construction from a mix of local, state, and private funders.

On August 4, 2022, the Circuit Trails Coalition hosted a press event (pictured below) for the announcement of new funding committed to the Spring Garden Street Connector Project: the City of Philadelphia ($2 Million),  PA DCNR ($1 Million) , and the William Penn Foundation ($2 Million) each committed funding to cover the $5 million cost for design and engineering. Additionally, the City of Philadelphia allocated $26 million for construction of Phase I of the project into the  FY2023 Transportation Improvement Program for PA , which was just approved at the end of July.

Press event details:  Spring Garden Street Connector Secures Design Funding & More! 

With funding for final design and construction for the Spring Garden Street Connector in place, the project team, led by the City of Philadelphia and supported by advocates and the public, can begin the final design process, which the City stated could take up to  two years , with subsequent construction afterwards in the coming years. To learn more about the Spring Garden Connector Project, visit:  phila.gov/programs/spring-garden-street-improvement-project/  For any questions, contact  mail@springgardenstreetimprovements.com 

Below are details around numerous issues facing people traveling Spring Garden Street. A high quality bikeway design can address these issues and improve safety and comfort not just for people biking but also for those walking, taking transit, and driving.

Spring Garden Street's painted bike lanes are routinely blocked, forcing cyclists out into traffic. These obstructions often include:

• Parked or idling vehicles
• Drivers entering/exiting a parking space
• Parked vehicles for loading/unloading
• Drivers/passengers opening car doors

To combat these issues, a bikeway separated from traffic by parked cars and a curb would provide substantially more safety and comfort for people biking. Having it along the curb would allow cyclists easy access to jobs, residences, services, restaurants, and shops along the corridor. But it would also improve travel for other modes as well:

• People walking and getting in and out of vehicles use separated space from the bikeway, with new green stormwater infrastructure and vegetation that will add shade and comfort, while reducing flooding.
• A curbside bikeway creates an opportunity to redesign and improve the curbside to better manage special parking zones for disabled access, bus stops, deliveries, and passenger pick-up and drop-off.
• A curbside bikeway creates an opportunity to redesign safer intersections and crossings from the curbside where improvements would benefit people walking as well those biking.

A median bikeway was considered by the Spring Garden Street Improvement Project ( more info ), which would provide separation from traffic and driveways. However, it would not allow for easy access to curbside destinations, and it does not open up the same opportunities as a curbside alignment for improving conditions along the curb for pedestrians, transit users, or parking management. The Project Team heard from the City's round of public engagement that a  curbside alignment was the preferred design  for the project.

See below for examples of curbside bikeways that navigate and mitigate issues to improve travel for all users.

Although there is no example with all of the elements being proposed for the Spring Garden Street Greenway existing in Philly, there are still many examples with select design elements in Philly, which people should visit and try out.

 Delaware River Trail  (Penn St): two-way bikeway at sidewalk level

 Bartram's Mile  sidepath (ECG): shared-use path by Botanic Ave

 58th St Greenway  sidepath (ECG): shared-use path on 58th Street

 West Bank Greenway : shared-use path along 31st Street

 Spring Garden St & Delaware Ave : Imagine protected intersections where people walking and biking need extra protection from turning movements. Such a design would check off many boxes from the City's  2025 Vision Zero Action Plan