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Traffic circles are better if there’s room.

Okay hear me out here.

I think the best idea for Kelly drive is to make it slightly wider (meaning the bike trail would need to be slightly smaller in some areas) and add barriers in the center, between each direction of travel. It makes it safer because you avoid oncoming crashes, and there’s also natural bottlenecks at the rock tunnel and the corner near the stands that could only fit one lane, so speed limits would need to be reduced. You only give half of the people the opportunity to drive onto the grass now without doing extra u turns, and you make the openings that would allow those uturns entrances to parking lots anyway.

On the weekends, they can close the side of the road that comes into the city, and it will offset the width reduction of the current path by allowing runners and bikers to use the street while being protected by a barricade. Added bonus of even lower speeds on the weekend because you only have two lanes now.

Understanding the shoe string budget that PP&R deals with (especially when it comes to funding non rec center parks, ie most of East and West Fairmount), consider being grateful.

Even moreso, be grateful for whoever at PP&R was creative enough to shoe string this literal shoe string semi-solution together.

Please do not put concrete barriers with advertising on the drive. For real?

Are people going to drive their cars through these chains?*

Finally, back to the budget… It cannot be understated the degree to which Philly is a city fighting endemic poverty, and the PP&R budget is almost 99% focused on rec center programs that feed kids and attempt to keep kids off streets and doing well in school and in life. It is not funded well enough to make a priority of Azalea Garden strolls and Kelly Drive exercise.

Seems to me this is exactly how we should want the city to prioritize spending.

That said, maybe Streets Dept is responsible for the barriers. I know less about the mechanics here.

Anyways, I don’t know how to solve the larger issues, and there’s certainly plenty of wasted money and stupidity in city government.

But this is not an example of that.

*Edit: I can tell people think, yes, people will drive though the chains. I’m not so sure. When lots of people park on the grass in that section, it’s not because they are all the type of people who would commit an obvious act of vandalism to park on grass that looks dubious to park on; it’s that a larger number of people probably will park dubiously if someone else has done it first. Will some asshole rip the chain down and park on the grass? Undoubtedly. Will mom, dad, and the kids follow suit when they realize they need to drive over a broken chain to do so…?

Edit 2: Permanent barriers are not the solution. That grass should be considered as an opportunity for festival and other use. This is a world class and historically important regatta course. Is it hypocritical to let boat trailers park on the grass? No! Hosting world class regattas is exactly the type of thing we should want Fairmount Park and Parks & Rec and Philadelphia to be known for. The grass can survive occasional mixed use. The grass can’t survive weekly parking. We can handle the nuance folks!

Not just for emergencies, all of the teams drive their boat trailers up and a bunch of the families drive up and unload their tents and shit in the early mornings. Maybe not every time but I’ve at least seen it happening while riding on the path in the early mornings.

But if they need something removable, there are much stronger options out there than a rope. There are those wide poles that go up and down into the ground (I don’t know what they’re called).

True true. Didn’t think about that. Or maybe have access points for first responders. Idk.

Bollard .. not the cable

Except they don’t seem to be doing that either.

Not a bad idea at all. Hard to steal or vandalize a hole.

“Shoulder shrug” heh heh

I would guess that they’ll never install a permanent barrier here because, once the regatta is in town driving on the grass is 100% okay

More cops enforcing petty traffic violations means less cops who are able to focus on the whole violent crime epidemic that this city is caught in. They’ve got much bigger fish to fry than a guy rolling through a stop sign.

You know....

for as much as people HATE potholes for fucking up our cars, maybe this is exactly what needs to be placed there. Strategically placed holes that are of a certain size so that if cars try to run through, their tires fall in and they get stuck

This isn't going to stop people that already think driving their car across the grass is ok.

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Still not gonna stop people from driving their Altimas with temp tags over them to park on the grass.

Philadelphia only runs pilots. They never do the actual project. Equity and all.

Every day I think about how great it would be if this city banned cars and really invested in public transit

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If someone manages to put the time and effort into actually removing an in-ground structural bollard, they've earned that bollard

I was walking my dog when I took that. Don’t you have anything better to do?

What is hip?

I was under the assumption that something more solid was going in and the rope was just being used for marking purposes. Is that not the case here??

Lol k: https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/xfvkup/wasnt_this_recently_a_protected_bike_lane_in_from/