Tyler Morris shrugs his shoulders at Philadelphia's degree of bike-friendliness.
"It's average," said Morris, a College junior and a daily bike rider. "They make an effort to accomodate bikers."
But if Alex Doty, executive director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, has his way, bicycling in Philadelphia will never again be just an "average" experience.
On March 22, Doty's organization presented an eight-part questionnaire to Philadelphia mayoral candidates - including Bob Brady, Dwight Evans, Chaka Fattah, Tom Knox and Michael Nutter - to gauge support for a series of changes to make Philadelphia a more bike-friendly city.
Questions included whether candidates would support the creation of a new Bicycle Pedestrian Coordinator position and a Department of Transportation in the city government, and whether they would support a plan that could potentially make Philadelphia the "most bicycle friendly city on the East Coast."
The questions are indicative of the challenges the city faces in the effort to accomodate bicyclists.
"We are the only major city without a bike pedestrian coordinator, and there is no Department of Transportation," Doty said. "Both are key for a great biking city."
"If we started planning for bikes in ways that Chicago, San Francisco and New York have, we could have a chance to become one of the great biking cities," he added.
Luckily for Doty, and for bicyclists like Morris, Philadelphia is in a position to become one of the country's preeminent bike-friendly cities.
The changes, if implemented, would particularly affect Penn students, as Center City and University City are the two most popular biking areas in Philadelphia.
Making bike-riding effective and easy is also important for attracting residents to the city, and, in the case of Penn students, retaining recent college graduates.
"One of the things people look for when they move to a city is how easily they can get around," said Christine Knapp, Eastern Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future. "Biking is a great option for people who don't want to own cars or pay for parking."
Over 400,000 Philadelphians rode a bike at least once last year, and over 25,000 ride their bikes to work at least once a month, Doty said.
Former Mayor Ed Rendell's administration created the existing 225 miles of bike lanes in the city.
Doty said he feels it is time to expand and improve upon this system. Specifically, he said he hopes the city will choose to develop a bike-lane connection between the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers.
"Anyone that has ridden in the city knows bike lanes have serious gaps," Doty said. "Now it's time to tackle some of the harder spots."
And there are additional benefits to improving biking conditions in the city.
"You're making the air cleaner, and you're reducing congestion," Doty said. "At a time when obesity is an epidemic, it also becomes a way of creating a healthy Philadelphia."
But, according to Doty, bicycling is, above all, another way to have good time.
"It has all these other benefits - it calms the streets, it makes people healthy, it encourages people to go to neighborhood shops - but in the end, the thing that's best about it is that it's fun," he said.
