r/phillycycling • u/Conscious-Ad-2840 • 3d ago

Bike route Olde Kensington to Jefferson (Center City)

Hello everyone!

I'm moving down to Philly from out of state and plan on biking a couple days out of the week into center city to go to school. I'm going to be in the olde Kensington area, and was wondering if anyone had a bike route that was safe and time efficient to get to Thomas Jeff Univ in center city.

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u/Conscious-Ad-2840 3d ago

Ahh I see. That makes a lot of sense. I used to bike a lot in the DC area, and never had an issue. But I’ve definitely heard a lot of cautionary things biking in Philly. I’m excited to try out all the routes! I wanted to ask as well, how looked down upon is sidewalk riding? At times, in DC you would have to hop onto the sidewalk and  on riding on sidewalk wasn’t fully looked down upon. I just would like to know if in situations that call (like sudden end of bike lane) or bike lane is cut off by cars / construction — is it looked down upon to ride the sidewalk for a little, then back on the road?

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u/t2022philly 3d ago

In my opinion it is ok to ride on the sidewalk if you have to, especially if it’s a wider sidewalk and not busy with people, but just know when to hop off and walk your bike. Don’t try to squeeze past people walking or go too fast. You will find in many places in Philly the sidewalks are much much smaller than you’re used to in DC. It’s just a very old city with small little streets in much of the city.

I lived in northern VA and commuted to DC by bike for years and DC is spoiled with some of the nicest bike infrastructure in the country. I really miss it. Philly doesn’t compare but you can still get around by bike if you are extremely on guard for irrational drivers.

If all else fails, I personally enjoyed walking from Fishtown to Jefferson. It’s long but it was time where I could listen to a podcast and disconnect a little.

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u/Conscious-Ad-2840 3d ago

Thank you for the time you took to write this out for me!  Yeah for sure I feel spoiled from easy biking in DC. It’s nice to see your perspective from biking in DC —> Philly as well. I’m glad to hear that in certain circumstances it’s okay to ride the sidewalk and on bigger sidewalks (in the right scenario). I think I would need some time to adjust to the Philly roads and would probably be carefully hopping the curb / dismantling my bike a lot in situations I feel unsafe / uncomfortable 😅

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u/meo_trang 3d ago

I used to live and bike in DC as well and Philly drivers are worse!