Philadelphia Bike Route Safety Map

Philadelphia went from about 205 miles of bike lanes in 2008 to nearly 300 miles by 2021, and from 2008 until New York overtook it in the 2024 Census figures it had the highest bike-to-work share of any of the ten largest US cities. But a painted stripe on Pine Street and the car-free gravel of Forbidden Drive are not the same ride, and the gap between them is exactly what a score is for. Brakeaway rates any Philadelphia route 0–100 on protected infrastructure, trail connectivity, intersection risk, traffic exposure, and surface quality. Paste a Google Maps link, upload a GPX, or connect Strava. Scores are informational estimates — not a substitute for local judgment.

How Brakeaway scores a Philadelphia route

Every route is analyzed across five factors, weighted for the conditions Philadelphia riders actually meet: a strong riverfront trail spine, a Center City grid that is mostly paint rather than concrete, a High Injury Network that swallows most of the serious crashes, and two surface hazards — trolley rail and Belgian block — that barely exist in other American cities.

1. Protected infrastructure and trail connectivity. What share of your line sits on a separated path, a parking-protected lane, or a car-free road? The city's protected network reached 19.3 miles at the end of 2021 — closer to 25 lane-miles once two-way bikeways are counted on both sides — which is small next to the roughly 300 miles of total bike lane. Segments on the Schuylkill River Trail, the Delaware River Trail, Forbidden Drive, Bartram's Mile and the parking-protected stretches of Walnut and Chestnut score at the top of this factor.
2. Intersection and arterial-crossing risk. Philadelphia's Vision Zero program is built around a High Injury Network in which roughly 12 percent of streets carry about 80 percent of fatal and serious-injury crashes. Brakeaway penalizes both riding along those corridors and crossing them unprotected, which is why an otherwise quiet numbered street can lose points at a single Broad Street or Germantown Avenue crossing.
3. Traffic volume and exposure. A bike lane next to fast-moving general traffic with nothing but paint between them is scored as exposure, not protection. This is the single biggest reason Center City's best-known bike route — the Spruce and Pine pair — does not score like a path.
4. Surface quality, rail and stone. SEPTA's subway-surface trolley lines run west and then turn south at 42nd Street onto Baltimore Avenue, Chester Avenue and Woodland Avenue, and disused rail is still embedded in streets elsewhere; the Bicycle Coalition has documented a rider losing teeth and breaking a jaw in a track fall at 11th and Reed. Old City and Society Hill keep working Belgian block and cobblestone. Brakeaway flags oblique rail-crossing angles and downgrades stone-paved and unpaved segments — including the crushed-stone and boardwalk stretches of the Schuylkill River Trail between East Falls and the Manayunk canal towpath.
5. Elevation and grade. Most of the riverfront trail network is close to flat — Forbidden Drive is explicitly a flat gravel road with easy grades — while routes climbing out of the Schuylkill and Wissahickon valleys toward Manayunk, Roxborough and Chestnut Hill carry real sustained gradient. Brakeaway factors grade into the score rather than reporting it separately.

Highest-scoring Philadelphia bike routes

These are the routes that repeatedly land in Brakeaway's High Confidence band, because the separation is physical rather than painted.

Schuylkill River Trail — Schuylkill Banks through East Falls

The city's trail spine. More than 30 miles of the Schuylkill River Trail sit inside Philadelphia, part of a corridor ultimately planned to run roughly 120 miles from the river's headwaters in Schuylkill County down to Fort Mifflin. The Center City section runs close to two miles along Schuylkill Banks before tying into Kelly Drive, and includes the Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk — a 2,000-foot concrete deck cantilevered out over the water from Locust Street south to the South Street Bridge. Managed by the Schuylkill River Development Corporation south of the Art Museum and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation north of it, the paved sections score at the top of the range; the surface gets mixed north of East Falls, where the route becomes a combination of sidewalk, street routing, crushed stone and boardwalk on the way to the Manayunk canal towpath.

Kelly Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive loop

A lap of nearly nine miles hugging both banks of the Schuylkill, starting behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art and running past Boathouse Row and the entrance to Laurel Hill Cemetery. MLK Drive reopened after a two-year reconstruction that added a 10½-foot shared-use path, and the City closes it to motor vehicles every weekend in season — in 2026, from March 28 through November 29, between the East Falls Bridge and the MLK Bridge at Eakins Oval, from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Monday. Brakeaway scores the weekend car-free state separately from weekday conditions, because they are genuinely different roads. Note that Kelly Drive itself carries a High Injury Network designation, so the trail scores well while the adjacent roadway does not.

Forbidden Drive, Wissahickon Valley Park

Roughly five miles of car-free gravel road running the length of the Wissahickon valley, flat with easy grades and open to most bicycle types. It was named Pennsylvania's Trail of the Year in 2018. The Wissahickon Bike Trail, the Yellow and White Trails, and most access trails from outside the park are also open to bikes, but they are unpaved singletrack and score very differently from the main drive — Brakeaway treats the surface change explicitly.

Delaware River Trail — Pier 70 to Penn Treaty Park

Just under four miles along the eastern waterfront, from Pier 70 in South Philadelphia north to Penn Treaty Park in Fishtown, following Columbus Boulevard between Washington Avenue and Penn Street. It passes Spruce Street Harbor Park, the Independence Seaport Museum and Penn's Landing, and ducks under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. The design gives cyclists a smooth asphalt lane of their own next to a separate concrete walkway, which is why it scores well above an ordinary sidepath.

Benjamin Franklin Bridge south walkway

The Delaware River crossing to Camden. The Delaware River Port Authority spent about $9.5 million on a nearly 800-foot ramp serving the bridge's south path, which removed the stair carry that used to define the approach. It connects directly toward Race Street, where protected lanes run east from 8th.

Bartram's Mile and Grays Ferry Crescent

Bartram's Mile is a 1.1-mile, 15-foot-wide multi-use path on the west bank of the Schuylkill through the grounds of Bartram's Garden, with the Grays Ferry Crescent on the opposite side. The Schuylkill Crossing swing bridge — a rebuild on the piers of a 1902 railroad swing span, and set to be the only operating bicycle and pedestrian swing bridge in North America — will link the two and push the Schuylkill River Trail about 1.5 miles further south, close to 61st Street. It was still listed as forthcoming in the most recent public updates, so Brakeaway currently scores the two banks as separate routes.

Walnut and Chestnut parking-protected corridor, West Philadelphia

Chestnut Street's protected treatment was completed in 2022 and Walnut Street's parking-protected lanes between 33rd and 63rd Streets in 2023, giving West Philadelphia the longest continuous parking-protected pair in the city. Parked cars sitting between moving traffic and the bike lane score meaningfully higher than paint; Brakeaway still flags door-zone exposure where the buffer narrows.

Philadelphia by district — what to expect

Center City

Dense, flat, and mostly paint. Spruce and Pine are the most-used bike corridor in Center City and run from Front Street to 22nd, but between intersections they are painted lanes with flex posts. Protected north–south segments exist on 13th, 10th, 6th, 5th and 2nd Streets, and a plastic modular curb pilot went in on 13th between Locust and Chestnut in May 2026. A two-way cycle track runs on the Market Street Bridge between 20th and 23rd, where bike volumes at 20th and Market rose 32 percent in the most recent count year. East Market has raised bike lanes with ramps. South and east of City Hall the Market Street lanes remain a pilot.

West Philadelphia and University City

The strongest protected east–west pair in the city on Walnut and Chestnut, plus the Schuylkill River Trail and Bartram's Mile on the river. The offsetting hazard is trolley rail: the subway-surface lines emerge and run in-street, turning south at 42nd onto Baltimore, Chester and Woodland Avenues. Baltimore Avenue is a state road, which matters for what the City is allowed to build on it.

South Philadelphia

Washington Avenue's protected lanes between 11th and 4th were completed in 2022 and are planned to extend further east. The Delaware River Trail begins at Pier 70 and the Schuylkill River Trail is pushing south toward Bartram's Garden. Older stretches of South Philly keep embedded rail and stone paving that Brakeaway scores down.

North Philadelphia, Fishtown and Kensington

American Street's raised bike lanes between Lehigh and Master are the signature piece here, with the Delaware River Trail ending at Penn Treaty Park and Parkside Avenue's protected lanes between 41st and Bryn Mawr completed in 2021 on the western edge. Germantown Avenue and Old York Road are named in the City's Vision Zero work as safety-project corridors — a useful signal that they are not low-stress today. Indego's 2026 expansion reaches West Kensington and Germantown.

Northwest — Manayunk, Roxborough, Germantown, Chestnut Hill

Forbidden Drive and the Manayunk canal towpath anchor this side, but the connections between them and the rest of the network involve street routing and real climbing out of the valleys. Scores here swing hard between the trail segments and the roads that link them.

Northeast Philadelphia

Torresdale Avenue's protected lane runs to the Pennypack Creek Trail and Princeton Avenue's connects the Delaware River Trail to New State Road, and Ryan Avenue holds the distinction of Philadelphia's first parking-protected bike lane, installed in 2016. All of that sits in the shadow of Roosevelt Boulevard, covered below.

The roads Philadelphia riders actually route around

Roosevelt Boulevard. Up to twelve lanes wide in places, split into parallel local and express roadways with repeated merge points, it is routinely described as the most dangerous road in the city and the state. State Farm has ranked its intersections at Red Lion Road and Grant Avenue the second and third most dangerous in the nation. Automated speed cameras went in along the Boulevard in 2020 — the first in Pennsylvania — and were followed by a drop of more than 95 percent in speeding violations, a 21 percent fall in fatal and serious-injury crashes, and a 50 percent fall in crashes involving pedestrians. It is measurably better and still the hardest-flagged corridor in the city.

Broad Street. The City's Vision Zero reporting found Broad Street recorded more than one traffic death per month in 2024 — more than Roosevelt Boulevard, and more than any other street in Philadelphia.

The High Injury Network generally. About 12 percent of Philadelphia's streets carry roughly 80 percent of the fatal and serious-injury crashes. In the Vision Zero report covering 2023, the city recorded 123 traffic deaths — 21 percent below the 2020 peak — but 56 pedestrians and mobility-device users and 9 bicyclists were among them, against 2015–2019 averages of 34 and 4. The headline number falling while vulnerable-road-user deaths rise is the pattern the score is trying to make visible.

Spruce, Pine, and why Pennsylvania law shapes Philadelphia's bike lanes

In July 2024 Dr. Barbara Friedes, a Children's Hospital of Philadelphia physician, was killed when a speeding driver entered the Spruce Street bike lane. Advocates argued a physical barrier would have changed the outcome. The Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems put forward a $4.8 million package of concrete separation, daytime loading zones, no-stopping zones and enforcement; Mayor Parker's budget allocated $5 million for concrete protection between Front and 22nd Streets; more than 6,000 people signed a petition. Loading zones went in during 2025 as a precursor. Then a residents' group sued, a judge granted an injunction, and as of early 2026 the concrete was not installed and the case was awaiting rehearing. Brakeaway scores the lane that exists, not the one that is funded.

The wider constraint is state law. PennDOT has cited Title 75 §3354 of the vehicle code — which requires parking within 12 inches of the curb — in rejecting parking-protected bike lanes on state-owned roads. A run of bills (HB 1657 in 2017, HB 792 in 2019, HB 140 in 2021, HB 1283 in 2023) attempted to fix it; none has become law. That is why Philadelphia's parking-protected lanes cluster on city streets like Walnut, Chestnut, Parkside and Washington Avenue and are largely absent from state routes such as Baltimore Avenue.

Things worth knowing before your first Philadelphia ride

The Circuit. Philadelphia's trails are chapters of one regional project — the Circuit Trails, a developing network on the order of 800 miles across Greater Philadelphia. The Schuylkill River Trail, the Delaware River Trail and Pennypack Creek Trail are all part of it, and new links open regularly: the Schuylkill River Trail's Christian-to-Crescent segment opened in May 2025.

Indego. Philadelphia's bike share launched in 2015 and runs classic and electric pedal-assist bikes. By 2026 it operated more than 300 stations across roughly 50 square miles — about a third of the city — after a 2025 in which riders took over 1.3 million trips and the system added 36 stations and 530 docks. The 2026 plan adds about 40 more stations, reaching Germantown, West Kensington, Southwest Philadelphia, Wynnefield Heights and Packer Park. Brakeaway scores an Indego trip exactly like a trip on your own bike.

Paint is not protection. It is the phrase local advocates use, and it is also how the scoring engine behaves. A route that looks continuous on the city bike map can drop a full band where the separation stops.

Pre-score the crossings, not just the miles. Most of the score damage on a Philadelphia route happens at a handful of arterial crossings rather than along the quiet blocks in between. Run the route first and look at where the line goes red.

Resources

• City of Philadelphia — Spruce and Pine bike lane safety upgrades
• Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia
• Schuylkill River Greenways — Philadelphia SRT
• Circuit Trails — regional trail network
• Delaware River Waterfront Corporation — Delaware River Trail
• Friends of the Wissahickon — park activities
• Indego — Philadelphia bike share

Frequently asked questions

Is Brakeaway free to use for Philadelphia routes?

Yes. Scoring routes — in Philadelphia or any other city Brakeaway covers — is free. Upload a GPX file, paste a Google Maps directions link, or connect Strava to import existing rides. Every score is informational data, not a substitute for local judgment; verify conditions before you ride.

Why do the Spruce and Pine Street bike lanes score lower than they look on a map?

Spruce and Pine carry Center City's most-used bike corridor, but between Front and 22nd Streets they are still painted lanes with flex posts at intersections rather than continuous physical separation. The City has a funded project to add concrete and planter separation along that extent, and Mayor Parker's budget set aside $5 million for it, but a lawsuit from a residents' group produced an injunction and the concrete had not been installed as of early 2026. Brakeaway scores what is on the ground.

How does Brakeaway handle Philadelphia's trolley tracks and Belgian block streets?

Both are scored as surface hazards. SEPTA's subway-surface trolley tracks run west and turn south at 42nd Street onto Baltimore Avenue, Chester Avenue and Woodland Avenue, and disused rail remains embedded in streets elsewhere — the Bicycle Coalition documented a rider who shattered teeth and broke a jaw in a track fall at 11th and Reed. Old City and Society Hill keep working Belgian block and cobblestone. The engine penalizes oblique rail-crossing angles and downgrades stone-paved segments.

Which Philadelphia trails score highest?

The fully separated ones. The Schuylkill River Trail has more than 30 miles inside Philadelphia, including the 2,000-foot Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk between Locust Street and the South Street Bridge. Forbidden Drive is roughly five miles of car-free gravel through Wissahickon Valley Park with easy grades. The Delaware River Trail runs just under four miles from Pier 70 to Penn Treaty Park with a dedicated asphalt cycling lane. Bartram's Mile is a 1.1-mile, 15-foot-wide path on the west bank of the Schuylkill.

Which Philadelphia roads does Brakeaway flag hardest?

Roosevelt Boulevard is the extreme case — up to twelve lanes with parallel local and express roadways, and State Farm has ranked its intersections at Red Lion Road and Grant Avenue second and third most dangerous in the nation. The City's 2024 Vision Zero reporting found Broad Street recorded more than one traffic death per month that year, more than Roosevelt Boulevard. Philadelphia's High Injury Network concentrates about 80 percent of fatal and serious-injury crashes on roughly 12 percent of streets, and Brakeaway penalizes both riding on and crossing those corridors.

Does Brakeaway score Indego bike-share trips?

Yes, and identically to trips on your own bike — pedal assist does not change the infrastructure under the wheels. Indego launched in 2015, runs classic and electric bikes, and by 2026 operated more than 300 stations across a service area of roughly 50 square miles. Riders took more than 1.3 million Indego trips in 2025.

How often is Philadelphia route data updated?

Infrastructure data is refreshed monthly from OpenStreetMap and published City of Philadelphia and regional datasets. Openings such as new Circuit Trails segments, the Schuylkill Crossing swing bridge at Grays Ferry, and any concrete protection installed on Spruce and Pine are reflected in scores within about 30 days of appearing in the source data.

Last updated: September 24, 2026.