PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The same week a bike safety advocate was killed by a driver while riding in Fairmount Park, hundreds of cyclists rode throughout Center City to keep the pressure on Mayor Cherelle Parker to maintain her promises of protected bike lanes.
When Hallie Fenton thinks of her dad, Harry, he was usually riding a bike.
“According to my mother, my dad has been riding since his teens. As long as I’ve been alive, my dad came home every day from work for his lunch break and rode his bike,” she said.
The 67-year-old moved to Philly in retirement to be closer to his grandkids and became heavily involved with the cycling community, still riding his bike as much as he could. Harry died Tuesday morning, biking in Fairmount Park, the victim of a hit-and-run. Police have yet to catch the driver, but they have a car.
“The most principled, conviction-driven human I’ve ever met. He was honest to an absolute fault,” Hallie said, adding that from an early age her father taught her to use cars as little as possible and to walk and ride your bike as much as possible.
“Philadelphia streets would scare most people, but they didn’t scare him,” she said.
For the hundreds who came out Friday night, Harry’s life was yet another senselessly lost to a lack of safety measures promised, but yet to be implemented by the city.
Primarily, advocates want concrete barriers put on the bike lanes along Spruce and Pine streets, where Children's Hospital of Philadelphia resident Barbara Friedes was killed by a drunk driver last July.
“We want to save lives… this is not a statistic. It’s not a dollar figure in a budget spreadsheet… my son was a human being… Dr. Friedes was a human being. You can’t put a price on those things,” said Sidnui Ozer, who lost his son in Fairmount Park in 2020 while he was riding a bike.
David Tallone is with Philly Bike Action, which organized the ride.
“The mayor set aside $5 million in her budget to protect Spruce and Pine,” Tallone said. “However, plans have come out that they’re only protecting about half of the lanes as a pilot program.”
A city spokesperson told KYW Newsradio the plan cited by advocates is an “early, pre-decisional recommendation made by staff to leadership” and that no decisions have been made regarding improvements to Spruce and Pine streets.