February 02, 2016
Thom Carroll/for PhillyVoice
A cyclist rides between Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's Steaks in South Philadelphia.
Cyclists should be excited about a new job being added to Philadelphia's city government.
Citified first reported that Mayor Jim Kenney will create a position called the "Complete Streets Commissioner" who will, among other things, advocate for protected bike lanes.
Kenney spokesperson Lauren Hitt confirmed the creation of the new position in an email Tuesday.
"The position will work to make our streets more multimodal in addition to working to institute a dig-once policy," Hitt said.
Making streets "multimodal" and implementing a "dig-once" policy mean the following, according to Citified's Holly Otterbein:
• Multimodal -- Making streets more accessible not only to cars, but also for cyclists, pedestrians and transit users.
• Dig-once policy -- When streets are dug up for city projects, crews will attempt to get any other scheduled work on that roadway completed at that time. This is to avoid tearing up a street more than once.
The new position is apart of the phasing out of the Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities, as the new department will look at the issue of transportation as it impacts all modes of getting around.
Read more from Citified here.
