Heavy South Street Bridge Traffic this Weekend

How can I be so sure? Because this is the last weekend anyone will be able to cross the South Street Bridge for two whole years! A sad thing, for anyone accustomed to traveling back and forth from South to West Philly. It has long been rumored that the bridge lacks the structural integrity of modern bridges and poses a potential danger without the proposed reconstruction. The closing then, is probably not news, but be sure to give that bridge a proper send off!

For those who know it, the South Street Bridge has long competed with Spring Garden for the most breathtaking means of crossing the Schuylkill. Many a night have I crossed it at dusk, headed into Center City for a night of shenanigans, when the view of the skyline from that bridge has caught the breath in my chest. It's an iconic vista, to be sure. For a while, a crowd of kids used to hang out on the bridge and hassle other people riding by, but even that I sort of looked forward to because it was too, familiar and very of the bridge. It makes me certain that I'm not the only one in tough-guy Philly to have a soft spot.



However pitted and bumpy, the bridge is lighter on traffic than the other four, slowed by the light at the entrance to 76 unlike Walnut and Gray's Ferry and somehow less prone to speeding drivers than the spring garden bridge at night. If you have no other memorial to the crossing planned this weekend, the bicycle coalition has slated a ride at 8:45 am Monday morning, as the bridge closes to traffic at 9:30. The project anticipates disrupting the commuting route for nearly 1,000 cyclists, and I can't imagine that most of them won't take the chance to ride across it one last time.

E2 = MC BP

This actually has nothing to do with Einstein, which is good because it's hard to write exponents on the internet. But if you pretend the 2 up there is smaller and higher and then you use your thinking cap and decipher the code BP (Pssst! Brad Pitt!) then you will have solved the equation, leading you to the treasure, to bask in the glory that is the series on PBS called E Squared.

What does Brad Pitt have to do with it? Well apparently in his probably constant efforts to keep up with Angelina's do-gooding, Braddie has lent his voice to narrate this ongoing series on public television about sustainable design and culture. "Woah!" (That's what I first said when I caught it live on tv for the first time.)

This season, the series offers three families of programming: design, energy and transport. Both are shot in the same cinematic, well sound-tracked, crisply pictured style and both are very very good. I write you about it now because the episode featuring Velo Liberte just went up on the website in the transport family. Perhaps you've already collected quite the earful about the great success of the French bicycle sharing program, but even if you are already familiar, you should still be able to appreciate the real spotlight and consideration the idea is given in this brief documentary piece. Especially in light of all the like-minded proposals gaining consideration in cities all over the world, this piece does a great job discussing the pros and cons, the obstacles and the successes of the notion.

Photo from the Crew's documentation of filmmaking.

If you have the time, I highly recommend the other pieces too, as there are several about New Orleans and one about the Federal Building here in San Francisco. They are all listed on the program's website under webcasts. While the series on its own merits makes a great addition to the PBS roster, the program represents a great way that the technology giant AutoDesk has contributed something decidedly un-commercial that is of very high quality. With my soft spot for pretty documentaries and predisposition to this sort of programming, I was an easy target. But since you read this blog, I'm betting you might be too. And to further bait you, even BSNYC had almost entirely nice, however snarky, things to say about the piece.

E2 has no embed! option on their player and the Velib' bit hasn't made it on to youtube yet, so I need you to trust me here and follow the link. They say it will only be available for a week, so you'd better just do it today. Right Now! Ready? 1, 2, 3...Go!

This Weekend I Rode My Bike To Brooklyn

From Chinatown in New York City, but still! It seemed very adventurous at the time and I feel not a little proud of myself for doing it. After a little help finding the Manhattan bridge path from a very nice boy on the chinatown bus also with his bike, I got to my friend Adin's house in Park Slope in forty three minutes. And I made it back on Monday morning in even less! Here is a photo just to prove it:





I'm sort of a tough guy about riding in all kinds of weather in Philadelphia, I've gotten into my share of cursing matches with motorists, and I hoof it across our great bridges back to West Philly every night, but something about biking in New York City has always made me nervous. Well kids, this fear is hereby faced. If you've ever been a chicken like me, I encourage you to try it. Taking your bike on the bus is totally free. And once you're in New York, two wheels is way faster than the subway.

I also managed to catch a glimpse of this public art piece that I'd heard about a while back. While I maintain that the concept of building waterfalls on the East River is a bit frivolous, I'll admit that in person, they are a little breathtaking.