Since 2019, we’ve been working with the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia to legalize the use of Parking Protected Bike Lanes on state owned or funded roads.

Currently, municipalities in Pennsylvania lack the ability to easily install “Parking Protected” bike lanes and pedestrian plazas. These types of bike lanes use parked cars to physically separate pedestrians and people on bikes from car traffic. However, due to a technicality in the PA Vehicle Code that requires cars to be parked within 12” of the curb, Pennsylvanians are denied this life-saving tool, that has been used successfully in states and municipalities across the country.

Since we started, bills have passed the PA House of Representatives unanimously, but keep getting stuck in the Senate side of the Legislature.

To make matters worse, in 2022, we had to ask then Governor Wolf to veto our own bill due to poison pill amendments added to the legislation.

So far we’ve sent countless Action Alerts yielding thousands of letters and emails to pass this common-sense bi-partisan legislation. Pittsburgh City Council issued a Will of Council in favor of them.

We even painted a temporary parking protected bike lane demonstration project attended by local legislators along Penn Circle, which is now a permanent bike lane!

Yet the technicality remains to this day.

We haven’t given up!

There is a new bill in the House that could fix this.

Stay tuned to this space to find out how to get involved so that Pennsylvanians can enjoy the safety benefits available to many other states.

But don’t we have parking protected bike lanes in Pittsburgh?

YES! While these installations are not allowed on state-owned roads, the City of Pittsburgh has decided to install them on the roads that they own. However, if state money is associated to the project, even on city-owned roads, these bike lanes are still prohibited. Other municipalities may not feel comfortable doing the same.

This has affected Pittsburgh. For instance, on Forbes Ave in Oakland, traffic engineers determined that parking protected bike lanes were the best option, but were prohibited.