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America’s First Zoo: Raising the Sustainability Bar

A Pygmy Marmoset, one of the rare animals featured at the Philadelphia ZooThe Philadelphia Zoo, home to approximately 1,300 animals (many of which are rare and endangered) is one step closer to fulfilling its energy conservation goals with its new affiliation with GDF SUEZ Energy Resources, the retail energy business of one of the largest

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April 7, 2011
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Plant One Million: PHS’s tree-centric campaign

image via PHSThe Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s (PHS) newest greening campaign, Plant One Million, is an exciting greening endeavor that will plant trees in southeastern Pennsylvania, plus parts of New Jersey and Delaware.   The benefits of planting trees is no doubt recognized by our fair city – Mayor Nutter’s Green 2015 plan dedicates much of

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April 6, 2011
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“The Un-Road Trip”: A 12,000 mile trek sans car

treehugger.comHey GRID readers, thinking about trading in your car for an alternative mode of transportation? Halogen TV’s upcoming premiere will certainly give you the motivation to make your travels carless. On Earth Day, April 22, at 8pm (ET/PT) Halogen TV will premiere its latest in activism television, “The Un-Road Trip,” chronicling eco-adventurer Boaz Frankel, as

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April 6, 2011
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PIFA: ‘Precious Places’ premieres at the Kimmel Center

image via pifa.orgThe power of film is undeniable, and at this year’s Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, first time filmmakers from the Philadelphia community are proud to show off their short documentaries, highlighting the areas they call home.
This Monday, April 11 audiences will have the opportunity (at 6:00pm and 10:00pm) to view these

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April 6, 2011
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Green Tech Showcase: A gathering of innovative minds

Calling all Tech Nerds! Philly Tech Week will kick-off on April 25th and host events all over the city through April 30th. During the final brownbag lunchtime speaker session on Friday, WHYY will play host to the week’s Green Tech Showcase. Representatives from seven groups will come together to dazzle interested attendees with environmentally-conscious innovations in Philadelphia. Here’s what to expect: Christine

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April 5, 2011
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City Service: C Design C’s Winter 2011 Grants

SHARE Food Program Crew The Community Design Collaborative’s Winter 2011 service grants will give 10 community-based nonprofits the push they need to achieve sustainable development dreams, and further their programs.  SHARE Food Program, Inc. & Green Village Philadelphia: As part of the DVGBC’s Best of Greenbuild 2011 Conference, the Collaborative will lead a design charrette

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April 5, 2011
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Entrepreneurship Week: Empowering local businesses big and small

From April 18th to April 21st, Empowerment Group will host 9 events that will empower Philadelphia’s residents to tackle their entrepreneurial dreams in celebration of Entrepreneurship Week. The group is seeking entrepreneurs at all phases of business development to take part in a community micro grant competition. Seven entrepreneurs will compete to win funds.
All throughout the week, the Philadelphia

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April 5, 2011
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Close Encounters: Nature Photography by Christian Hunold

Photographer and frequent GRID contributor, Christian Hunold will host a small show during the upcoming Fairmount Arts Crawl on April 17th. The show is titled “Close Encounters,” and investigates the idea that, “wildlife photography requires cooperation between animal and photographer.” Hunold believes that a photographer seeking to capture a wild animal must avoid scaring the

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April 4, 2011
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SVN’s 2011 Innovation Awards: Now Accepting Applications!

2010 Innovation Award WinnersThe Social Venture Network (SVN), an organization comprised of CEO’s, investors and non-profit leaders who aspire to create a more sustainable environment and just economy, is collaborating with the Green Chamber of the South to honor the next generation of social entrepreneurs as they present SVN’s 5th annual Innovation Awards.   The

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April 4, 2011
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ACT LOCALLY: GRID’S Round-up of local events and newsy bits

April 6, 5:30pm – 7:30pm Get a chance to become more environmentally conscious by meeting with some experts on office and home energy savings, smart building technologies and solar power at The Jenkins Arboretum and Garden’s LEED Gold Certified Education Center’s “Go Green” Reception and Tour. The Education Center is located at 631 Berwyn Baptist

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April 4, 2011
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April is here and with it comes another issue of G April is here and with it comes another issue of Grid! Here are just a few of the stories you’ll find in issue 203:

• FDR Park’s renovation proceeds as lawsuit challenges its legality

• Thanks to a parent-run advocacy group, Philly public school students have the right to drink water and use the bathroom

• PA State Rep. Chris Rabb wants to bring meaningful and swift climate action to Washington

➡️ Read the new issue now at gridphilly.com

📸 Cover photos by Gabriel Donahue, Chris Baker Evens, and Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #phillynews #sustainability #environmentalnews #independentjournalism
In the late 18th century, the French chemist Antoi In the late 18th century, the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier radically changed how we understand the physical world. He was perplexed by the fact that when metal rusted, despite becoming more brittle, it actually gained weight rather than losing it. Why would metal weigh more when it was decomposing?

It weighed more, Lavoisier came to understand, because the metal was absorbing a then-unknown element: oxygen.

This led to his publishing in the 1789 book “Traité Élémentaire de Chimie” the law of conservation of mass, which states that during a chemical reaction, matter can be neither created nor destroyed. The burning log in your campfire that seems to have disappeared has merely been transformed into ash, water vapor and carbon dioxide.

Matter, alas, doesn’t disappear when we throw trash in the garbage, either. We say “throwing it away” but the age-old sustainability question remains: Where is “away?” The reality is that we are just throwing it.

➡️ Read the full note from our publisher at gridphilly.com

✍️ Alex Mulcahy

#philadelphia #sustainability #sustainabilitymatters #wastemanagement #airqualitytesting
The air in the Delaware Valley’s industrial corrid The air in the Delaware Valley’s industrial corridor doesn’t always smell nice. Major odor events assaulted the noses of Delaware County residents in 2019, 2020 and, most recently, last fall. During the 2019 event, Clean Air Council director of programs Eve Miari tried to check air quality readings from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection monitoring equipment in Marcus Hook. “When we went to access the data, it missed it by two hours,” she says. The monitor worked by capturing air in canisters at intervals, and whatever had caused the odor had leaked out between samplings. In early 2025, Clean Air Council launched an EPA-funded network of air quality monitors to ensure that no leak would go undocumented again.

The network stretches from Southwest Philadelphia through southern Delaware County, along an industrial corridor that dates back centuries. “Pretty much the entire waterfront is industry,” Miari says.

Miari and Clean Air Council’s Russell Zerbo rattle off a list of industrial facilities along the stretch, including the power plant in Eddystone, the Monroe Refinery in Marcus Hook and the Reworld (formerly Covanta) trash-burning power plant and Kimberly Clark paper mill in Chester. Additionally, highways intersect at multiple points (I-76, I-95, I-476), bringing tailpipe emissions from millions of cars and trucks into the surrounding communities. “We have more bad air quality days than good. These frontline communities are bearing the brunt of the impact,” Miari says.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Chris Baker Evens

#philadelphia #pollution #cleanairmatters #airquality #airqualitytesting
Germantown Kitchen Garden’s farmer, Amanda Staples Germantown Kitchen Garden’s farmer, Amanda Staples, who hails from Upper Darby, did not grow up on a farm. Although her grandparents operated a Christmas tree farm near Clarks Summit, Lackawanna County, Staples’ initial hands-on contact with farming was growing lima beans in her backyard for an elementary school assignment.

After graduating from Temple University with a degree in religion, Staples moved to Kensington, where she first encountered community gardens popping up on vacant lots. A friend invited her to help at a community garden in Camden, and that experience inspired Staples to mobilize volunteers and build a garden near her Kensington home. She nurtured the garden while earning money from customer service jobs at Philadelphia International Airport, Wawa and the Franklin Institute. Eventually, Staples committed to an internship at Scarecrow Hill Farm in Lancaster County. “Everything you did there was about farming. It was by far the most intensive learning experience,” she recalls. Her aspirations to become a production farmer started taking shape.

Buying a half-acre plot in Kensington proved impossible. Then something unexpected happened. An acquaintance was purchasing a home in Germantown, but the seller made the deal contingent on buying the adjacent parcel. It was a forest of neglect, so overgrown it was impenetrable. But it was affordable and available. Staples and her husband bought it in 2008. “It didn’t feel that risky,” she says. “It felt crazy, but not risky.”

Founded on her conviction that farms should exist in cities, Staples began to build Germantown Kitchen Garden as the “hybrid homestead and tiny business” she envisioned.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Marilyn Anthony
📸 Kristen Harrison

#philadelphia #communitygarden #urbanfarm #growyourownfood #homegrowntomatoes
A 1970s-era stereo receiver. Red leather boots. Ni A 1970s-era stereo receiver. Red leather boots. Nine fully intact eggplants.

These are just a few of the unexpected objects the Cobbs Creek Ambassadors have come across while cleaning up Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia.

But most of what they pick up is just typical litter: bottles, cans, food wrappers, old tires. And the volunteers behind this grassroots organization have picked up tons of it — an average of about 9.5 tons of trash each year, in fact — since starting up in 2018.

Cobbs Creek Ambassadors was co-founded by Rich Guffanti and Andrew Wheeler, acquaintances who first volunteered together building a wall in the Spruce Hill Bird Sanctuary. They enjoyed each other’s company and volunteered again as a duo to clear gutter leaves along Cobbs Creek Park between Catherine and Christian streets. This effort became a regular meet-up.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Emily Kovach
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #urbannature #parkcleanup #phillyparks #cobbscreek
Last year I wrote a series of columns in Grid abou Last year I wrote a series of columns in Grid about several ways the City of Philadelphia could expand composting. While I have had some productive conversations with City officials over the last year, I have seen no indication that they are prepared to begin any large scale residential composting pilot program in the near future. But that doesn’t mean we should throw up our hands and give up. Composting is something an individual can do to reduce their carbon impact. And while a paid composting service, like the one provided by Bennett Compost, works for some, it doesn’t meet everyone’s needs.

That is why we want to make sure we are educating people about the benefits of composting. In the coming months, while we wait for the City to incorporate composting into the municipal waste services I will lay out some practical ways people can set up their own composting systems.

So what do you need to compost the right way?

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Tim Bennett
📸 Photo courtesy of Delpixart

#philadelphia #compost #composting #foodwaste #zerowaste
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ Pennypack Creek and Park Cleanup: Join us for a morning of community action followed by an afternoon of celebration! We’re coming together to make our park and creek cleaner and more welcoming for everyone. Whether you’re a longtime neighbor, a first-time volunteer, or bringing the whole family, this event is for anyone who wants to make a positive impact on our shared green spaces.

When:
Saturday, March 21st (10:00 AM - 11:30 AM)

Where:
Pennypack on the Delaware Park
7801 State Road
Philadelphia, PA 19136

➡️ A DEEPLY ROOTED TROLLEY TOUR BY HARRIETTS BOOKSHOP: Welcome to A DEEPLY ROOTED TROLLEY TOUR by Harriett’s Bookshop! A DEEPLY ROOTED Trolley Tour is our three hour, hop on-hop off tour that celebrates local culture, history, music, and deeply rooted tradition by visiting new and seasoned spaces throughout Philadelphia.

When:
Saturday, March 21st (3:00 PM - 5:30 PM)

Where:
Harriett’s Bookshop
258 East Girard Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19125

➡️ Dyeing with Plants Spring Workshop: Learn to make colorful dyes for your next fabric- or egg-dyeing project from common plants you can find during your next hike or trip to the grocery store! Design and dye one yard of fabric using the batik technique and natural dyes. If you finish early, try your new skills on smaller, egg canvases.

When:
Sunday, March 22nd (1:00 PM - 2:30 PM)

Where:
Tyler Arboretum
515 Painter Road
Media, PA 19063

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents
Opening with subterranean footage of the foam cups Opening with subterranean footage of the foam cups, plastic bottles and sodden cardboard that decorate the sewer inlets underneath Philadelphia, filmmaker Melissa Langer’s 2025 documentary, “In Excess,” probes into the unseen places where the city’s litter ends up. Spoiler alert: When it comes to the city’s trash, there is no throwing it “away.”

“Every object we discard lives on somewhere else, disturbing someone else’s environment, forever,” says Langer. Langer, who moved to Philadelphia in 2017, immediately noticed disproportionate amounts of litter and illegal dumping in Northeast Philly and began exploring what the City was doing about it.

The product is her 70-minute feature, which weaves haunting stretches of trash footage with candid vignettes of the people tasked with cleaning it up, from Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) sewer inlet crews to a small Streets Department team that monitors hundreds of security cameras for illegal dumping.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Julia Lowe
📸 Melissa Langer

#philadelphia #waste #wastemanagement #wastedisposal #illegaldumping #litter
Hanna Kahler lives in West Philadelphia and rides Hanna Kahler lives in West Philadelphia and rides her blue commuter bicycle to work in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood, a trip she says takes 18 minutes via the Schuylkill River Trail and parking-protected bike lanes on Walnut and Chestnut streets.

When she spoke to Grid on Feb. 12, more than two weeks after the last snowflakes of the Jan. 25 winter storm fell, she was still unable to ride to work. She could take SEPTA’s 40 bus. “If it works well, it takes 40 minutes, but it hasn’t been working well,” she says. Mostly she’s been walking, which takes 47 minutes. “The City has completely dropped the ball on maintaining the bike lanes,” Kahler says.

The snow that fell directly onto the bike lanes and that the City did not clear wasn’t the only challenge. “Ignoring it is bad enough, but they’ve shoved piles of snow into the bike lanes,” Kahler says, referring to heaps — some as big as an SUV — that City workers clearing the roads had plowed into the bike lanes at intersections.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #bikelane #safestreets #bikesafety #bicyclesafety #bikephl
At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood on the corner of 7th and Christian streets in South Philadelphia holding a long dowel with a laminated, cutout pigeon on the end.

That wasn’t just any pigeon on the end of Simone’s walk leader staff. Primrose the pigeon is how the whole pigeon education enterprise began. Simone’s partner Hannah Michelle Brower took Primrose — at that point a weak, malnourished fledgling found by a neighbor on the sidewalk — to a pigeon rescuer who nursed the young bird back to health. Simone says the rescuer told them the recuperating pigeon, whom Brower had taken to calling Primrose, would do better as a pet rather than being released into the wild, and so the couple kept her.

“We just started learning more about her as an individual,” Simone says. “And then we started learning more about pigeon biology and behavior generally. One day, we realized we could predict what pigeons were about to do based on subtle cues that we can read now.” In the summer of 2025, the couple launched their pigeon tours, priced at $25, to share what they had learned.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Troy Bynum

#philadelphia #birding #birdwatching #pigeonlove #dovelove #urbanwildlife
The overgrown lot at 5308 Parrish St. in the Haddi The overgrown lot at 5308 Parrish St. in the Haddington neighborhood of West Philadelphia is getting back to its roots. After sitting abandoned, accumulating trash, construction debris and dumped car parts for over a decade, a new project is in progress to restore the space to a new iteration of its past life as a neat, blooming garden.

Nathan McWilliams, however, who has been pruning back invasive species like mulberry and tree of heaven since September, believes it is already an oasis.

“It has so much potential. And I just want to bring that garden back to its glory,” says McWilliams, owner and lead consultant at Tree In Me, LLC.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Julia Lowe
📸 Photo courtesy of Nathan McWilliams

#philadelphia #communitygarden #gardencare #gardenmaintenance #urbangreenspace #urbannature
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ 2026 Philadelphia Bike Expo: The Philly Bike Expo is an annual weekend-long event featuring exhibitors, seminars, presentations and events representing the spectrum of cycling.

When:
Saturday, March 14th (10:00 AM - 5:00 PM) - Sunday, March 15th (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)

Where:
Pennsylvania Convention Center
1101 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107

➡️ Philly Pigeon Tour: Join us on our Italian Market Pigeon Tour. Your expert pigeon guide will bring you through the historic market and visit nearby established pigeon flocks. You’ll also get to see the market pigeons nesting in old buildings and braving traffic with confidence.

When:
Saturday, March 14th (11:00 AM - 12:30 PM)

Where:
Get A Gato
638 Christian Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147

➡️ Tree House Book Swap: Tree House Books is hosting seasonal book swaps this year! Bring your friends, family, kids, friend’s kids, kid’s kids and some books to swap! Don’t forget a tote bag, too, to carry all your new reads.

When:
Saturday, March 14th (2:00 PM - 5:00 PM)

Where:
North Philly Peace Park
2226 W. Jefferson Street
Philadelphia, PA 19121

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents #phillyevent #philadelphiaevents
For Ana, 19, of Brazil, and Jonathan, 17, of Guate For Ana, 19, of Brazil, and Jonathan, 17, of Guatemala, the southern border of the United States marks the line between life and death. Ana and Jonathan, both clients of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of Pennsylvania (HIAS PA), a local humanitarian nonprofit that provides legal services to low-income immigrants in the state, now live in Philadelphia — but with looming uncertainty.

Ana’s journey began in 2019. Her mother wanted to reunite with Ana’s father, who had left Brazil for Philadelphia a few years earlier for work. Hard-pressed for money, Ana’s mother applied for visas and was denied. Instead of taking the U.S. government’s no for an answer, she hired a “coyote,” or guide, to smuggle her and Ana into America. Despite a difficult relationship with her parents, Ana, then 12, had no choice but to accompany her mother.

For Jonathan, gang violence and death threats forced him to leave his homeland. His mother, already living in Philadelphia, was unable to obtain a visa for him and hired a coyote to take him across the border in 2024.

Thus, Ana and Jonathan arrived without legal documents. They’re hardly alone in that status. Save The Children, a global nonprofit that works to improve the lives of children, reported that in 2022, the “Department of Health and Human Services received a record 128,904 unaccompanied, undocumented minors, up from 122,731 in the prior year.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Constance Garcia-Barrio
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #immigration #immigrantstories #immigrantrights #immigrationlaw #immigrationlawyer
It’s not easy to get to the Lankenau Environmental It’s not easy to get to the Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School. The school sits on 17 acres at the northwest border of Philadelphia, a pocket of land not served by SEPTA, forcing the district to bus students to and from school. In exchange for the long ride, however, students learn in an expansive outdoor classroom — the neighboring Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education has served as an extension of the grounds since Lankenau became an environmental magnet school in 2005. If the School District of Philadelphia is to be believed, students will be better served by Lankenau closing and having its programs merged into Walter B. Saul High School. (The original plan to merge the school with Roxborough High School was changed.) 

But “Don’t Sell Lankenau Environmental” was spelled out in bright yellow letters on the T-shirts worn by Lankenau students and teachers at a Feb. 4 open house and community listening session, addressing what they believe is the real reason the district proposes to close the school and send its students to another school.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Chris Baker Evens

#philadelphia #environmentaleducation #environmentalscience #environmentaleducation #educationmatters #magnetschool
For roughly 20% of Americans who ride public trans For roughly 20% of Americans who ride public transportation, the Transit app is their guide. Displaying nearby routes and mapping step-by-step transit directions, it also asks users to give feedback on their rides.

But for SEPTA riders, their responses to Transit’s in-app questions about station and vehicle conditions during a trip and overall satisfaction at its completion aren’t seen by the transportation authority. That’s because SEPTA does not subscribe to Terminal, Transit’s customer experience platform.

Rather, it relies on its own methods to acquire customer feedback.

The agency conducts a quarterly customer satisfaction survey, which asks riders to rate cleanliness, safety, reliability and other aspects of the system.

“We are super focused on those numbers right now,” says Lex Powers, chief officer of customer experience. “It’s a whole rallying cry in the agency to improve these scores. And over the past year or two, for the most part, they have gone up.”

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Gabriel Donahue
📸 Photo courtesy of Alga Serba

#philadelphia #septa #septaphilly #iseptaphilly #publictransit #publictransportation
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ Philly Homegrown First Fridays: Each month, we open our doors for an evening of local love: shop unique, handcrafted goods, meet the makers, and connect with your neighbors. Enjoy complimentary wine, light refreshments, and a vibrant atmosphere where art, plants, and people come together.

When:
Friday, March 6th (6:00 PM - 9:00 PM)

Where:
Plant and People
3952 Lancaster Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19104

➡️ Birding with Philly Queer Birders: It’s been a long winter, so come shake off the cold with queer community and #birdjoy! Join Philly Queer Birders and Audubon Mid-Atlantic as we check out early spring visitors, and perhaps some surprises along the way.

When:
Saturday, March 7th (9:00 AM - 11:00 AM)

Where:
The Discovery Center
3401 Reservoir Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19121

➡️ A Journey to Backyard Biodiversity: How do you transform a tangled mess of a backyard and a traditional lawn and into a thriving wildlife oasis? Join native gardening enthusiast Katie Fisk as she shares how she used native plants to turn her own yard into a haven for pollinators and birds.

When:
Saturday, March 7th (10:00 AM - 11:00 AM)

Where:
Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens
631 Berwyn Baptist Road
Devon, PA 19333

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents #phillyevent #philadelphiaevents
Across the nation, more and more youth are reachin Across the nation, more and more youth are reaching for a bicycle for recreation and as a means of transportation. In fact, the advocacy group PeopleforBikes found in a 2024 survey that ridership for children ages 3 to 17 increased from 46% to 56%, reversing a decline. And on March 14 and 15 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the 15th Philadelphia Bike Expo (PBE) is working to instill cycling confidence in young people with its Kids Arena, aiming to build on that upward trend.

The kids riding arena features separated courses with skill and safety stations for a full range of experience levels. The program will be overseen by Sam Pearson, a lifelong cyclist and the Healthy Communities program manager at Pennsylvania Downtown Center. “It’s a skills course,” Pearson says. “We’re trying to get them to show how well they follow the signs and interact with each other as they’re circulating.”

The course “road,” as in years past, is halved by a center line, and riders must navigate cones and each other. There is also a roundabout where riders have to obey traffic signs, take turns and decide when to go straight or proceed around the traffic circle, Pearson says. There will be separate stations for riders to focus on a specific skill, and others where they must combine those skills in practice.

Pearson says there are numerous benefits to these kinds of courses, called traffic gardens. Beyond balance work, she says children can work on gliding, braking, staying in their lane and responding to road signs.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Dawn Kane
📸 Photo courtesy of Diana Steif

#philadelphia #safestreets #bikesafety #bicyclesafety #phillybikeexpo #bikephl
Amanda Parezo isn’t your typical bike lane advocat Amanda Parezo isn’t your typical bike lane advocate. For one thing, she doesn’t ride a bike.

Parezo once loved cycling around Philadelphia. But in 2021, after a game of kickball at Hancock Playground in East Kensington, she was struck in the back by a stray bullet and paralyzed from the waist down. Now, she gets around town using a wheelchair. She rolls from her condo in Old City to her job at Thomas Jefferson University, where she teaches occupational therapy. In a city where sidewalks are often damaged or blocked, Parezo often ends up rolling into a bike lane.

But bike lanes, she says, often aren’t free of barriers either. When a vehicle is stopped or parked in the lane, Parezo has to roll into the street, greatly increasing her risk of injury. “I feel like something’s going to happen as soon as I get into the street,” she says. “If it’s nighttime, that makes it exponentially worse, and then I just won’t go out because I’m scared. I’ll just stay home.”

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ + 📸 Jordan Teicher

#philadelphia #visionzero #safestreets #accessibilitymatters #accessibilityforall #bikelane
By all accounts, 67-year-old Harry Fenton was a mo By all accounts, 67-year-old Harry Fenton was a model of safe cycling.

He used hand signals when he was turning and stopped at every stop sign and red light, even when there wasn’t a car anywhere in sight. To be visible, he wore fluorescent jackets, vests and shirts, and he never left the house without his helmet or fully-charged lights. He found routes that felt safe and then stuck to them.

Fenton, in other words, did everything right. But he couldn’t prevent what happened to him on the morning of Sept. 2 while he was riding his bike in Fairmount Park. At the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Avenue of the Republic, a speeding driver struck him and fled. Fenton was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, making him the fourth cyclist killed in Philadelphia last year, and the eighth person killed in a crash on Belmont Avenue in the past six years.

Belmont Avenue has been part of Philadelphia’s “High Injury Network” — the 12% of roads that are responsible for 80% of the city’s total fatal and serious road injuries — for years. So why have the dangerous conditions there remained unaddressed? The answer is linked to the nearly decade-long history of Vision Zero, the City’s safe streets initiative.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ + 📸 Jordan Teicher

#philadelphia #visionzero #safestreets #bikesafety #bicyclesafety #bikephl
New issue alert! Grid 202 has arrived and with it New issue alert! Grid 202 has arrived and with it comes another set of important stories to tell. Here are just a few of the ones you’ll find in this month’s pages:

• The efforts to eradicate traffic deaths in Philadelphia launched in 2016. Ten years in, the City is still far from its goal

• Could Philadelphia’s environmental science high school be for sale?

• For some undocumented minors living in Philadelphia, making it to the United States is just one step in a long journey to safety and security

➡️ Read the full issue now at gridphilly.com

📸 Cover photo by Jordan Teicher

#philadelphia #phillynews #sustainability #sustainableliving #environmentalnews #independentjournalism
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