Does anyone know if the Cobbs Creek Bikeway is completed yet? I was trying to find a good way to bike from UC to the bike path in the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge - ended up taking Woodland Ave (not the most scenic route). Took Lindbergh on the way back which was a little nicer. Anyone have any better route suggestions?

Did you try heading out Baltimore Ave. to Cobbs Creek Parkway. Kind of traficky but the sections actually along Cobbs Creek will have pathways to ride out of traffic on. Island Ave. will be hectic but probably better than Woodland. I saw that they were strating to finally do some work on resurfacing Woodland. About time the entire road is one undending series of potholes.

I don't know in retrospect Lindburgh might be the nicest way to go.

Awesome question - considering my wife and I were down there two weeks ago and I wondered the same thing --- what's the point of having a great national park in proximity to the city but no way to get there except by driving. The bike paths that I noted were all cut off by busy streets. I did see signs, however, for a bike path which I could not locate after driving over 84th street twice. I wondered whether it was feasible or even within reason to link the Heinz Wildlife Park access point via a bike path over the Platt Bridge and then into S. Philly (FDR Park, then Pattison, then Delaware Ave). It would expand the options for bikers and make for some good bike tourism.

You can take Springfield Avenue west to the end; it dumps you onto the CC Parkway bikepath. You can then take that to Lindbergh, or if you are feeling adventurous, you can turn right onto any of the small streets that go through Eastwick/Elmwood Park.

When you get to Lindbergh, instead of turning into the main Heinz entrance, take it to the end (you will see the concrete barriers there). There are some trails there that go through what were once vibrant communities; the scenery there is quite surreal with old cars, roads, hydrants, etc. Most of the debris in the area is from old buildings. If you take the paths, you will eventually either get lost or find the main wide trail of the Heinz refuge. Bring a map and a compass just in case.

[The reason there is no longer a community there is that the city used eminent domain to remove the tenants and gave usage rights to the Korman corp, which now makes millions off of it but pays no taxes. Zero. But that's an entirely different and long post.]


Here's a photo:
http://openphoto.net/cgi-bin/image?image_id=72

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Thanks.

John
http://john.ellingsworth.org

Take a look at a map of the Philadelphia bicycle network. jellings' route is mostly marked on it.

PDF version:

http://www.phila.gov/streets/the_bicycle_network.html

Hard copys (also hardcopy of the Phila transit map):

http://www.bikemap.com/philadelphia.html

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