38th and Spruce car crashes mark problematic intersection

Four car crashes in five weeks at 38th and Spruce streets intersection mark an uptick in incidents in an intersection found to be one of Penn’s most unsafe in a 2009 report.

The report highlighted nine recommendations for improving traffic flow and safety at the intersection. However, according to Principal Planner for the Office of the University Architect Mark Kocent, none of these have been accomplished except for pedestrian countdown signals that were already being installed at the time of the report.

Some recommendations of the report — conducted by Facilities and Real Estate Services, the Division of Public Safety and the transportation engineering firm Orth-Rodgers & Associates, Inc. — included painting the bike lanes along 38th Street green and coordinating the traffic signal with the intersection of 38th Street and Baltimore Avenue.

Five people have had to be taken to the hospital as a result of a series of car crashes at the intersection of 38th and Spruce streets in the last five weeks.

However, the University does not have the authority to change the roads around its campus, Kocent said.

“Hopefully this will cause the city’s interest in this intersection to rise,” he added.

The Division of Public Safety deferred comment to the Office of the University Architect on the issue.

Any change in the streets would require a partnership between the City of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. “The only power we have is to try and lobby them,” Kocent said.

No one from the City of Philadelphia Department of Streets or PennDOT could be reached for comment.

The 2009 report noted that “pedestrian safety is an issue” at the 38th and Spruce intersection and that it has “high pedestrian conflicts with turning vehicles.”

It noted that of all the intersections around Penn’s campus, the one at 38th and Spruce streets had the second highest number of crashes involving a pedestrian in the reporting period, behind only 30th and Market streets. Thirteen collisions with a pedestrian involved were reported between 2001 and 2005, the latest data available for the report.

This year’s string of incidents began on Feb. 22, which saw two crashes at the intersection. The first, involving an elderly female driver, ended with her losing control of her vehicle while making a left turn and crashing into a traffic signal, knocking it down. She was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with non-life threatening injuries.

Later that day, three students were struck by a car and forced to be taken to HUP.

Last Friday, a female School of Veterinary Medicine student was involved in a car crash just a half block from the intersection after colliding with a vehicle while attempting to make a left turn.

Tuesday night, two cars collided after one attempted to make a left on Spruce Street. One of the drivers had to be transported to HUP.

In an interview last month, Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said that 38th and Spruce streets is “one of the intersections we scrutinized with the city of Philadelphia in terms of safety.”

DPS currently does not station officers at 38th and Spruce streets at peak hours to help control traffic and pedestrians. It does this for several intersections around campus, including 34th and Walnut streets.

The intersection is no stranger to auto accidents. In 2004, a College freshman was hospitalized after being hit crossing 38th Street. The year before, a taxi driver was struck while walking across Spruce Street.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.