Our
Mission
Friends of Pine and Spruce (FOPS) is dedicated to Accessible, Balanced Safety Solutions for all users of Pine and Spruce Streets in Center City while advocating for data-driven public policy and equitable resource allocation to improve overall city safety.
Our
Principles
1. Friends of Pine and Spruce (FOPS) is committed to safety and accessibility for all Pine and Spruce Streets users in Center City, including residents, the elderly, children, disabled persons, pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists.
2. FOPS supports the 20-minute grace period for vehicles stopping in the bike lane, which the city promised residents when the lanes were created in 2009. Since then, not a single death has occurred from a bicyclist maneuvering around a vehicle stopped in the bike lane.
3. FOPS supports the City’s 2019 bike lane safety and improvement project for Pine and Spruce, which consisted of moving the bike lanes to the left side, adding intersection treatments, including delineator posts at the end of left-hand turn blocks, continuously painted markings and the City’s recommitment of the 20-minute grace period.
4. FOPS does not support the installation of unnecessary additional loading zones because the existing supply of street parking is already insufficient.
5. FOPS advocates for our city to establish public policy based on facts and data, not emotion, and to serve all citizens, not just a vocal minority.
6. FOPS advocates for our City to deploy safety resources according to the City’s data-driven policy, i.e., to focus resources on streets in high-risk areas as identified in the DVRPC VRU1 safety assessment report, which represents the 12% of city streets that account for 80% of the deaths and serious injuries; and which exists disproportionately in neighborhoods, the residents of which are predominantly lower income and of color. Diverting finite resources to areas not on the high-risk areas, such as relatively safe streets in Center City, would cause more deaths citywide and would be inequitable.
7. FOPS is open to considering reasonable safety upgrades on Pine and Spruce Streets, especially speed tables and other measures that directly reduce speed.
Suppose the City concludes that significant additional bike lane infrastructure, such as physical dividers, is required. In that case, the bike lanes should be moved from Pine and Spruce to wider East-West streets that accommodate that infrastructure.