Week 16/17 in Review (June 20 – July 3)

The past few weeks I've been a little busy and have not been able to update Urban Cycle as much as I’d like. I was on a vacation in Maine for about 5 days and then I've been busy trying to piece together some odd jobs to make a little bit of income.  Income is good for me, but unfortunate for Loretta as I do not get to ride as often. However, here is an update for the last half of June.

Aside from the rides for groceries or to go visit people the only rides I have taken in the past few weeks are to do laps around FDR Park in South Philly.  It’s my favorite park to ride around because the loop road has low traffic (except for during a Phillies game) and there are no stops. I can just ride, and ride, and ride until I’m blue in the face if I want to. I went to the park twice in the past two weeks and did a little exploring afterwards. After biking around FDR the first time I ended up traveling to the Gray’s Ferry Crescent to check out the progress. It is still not open but they at least have some grass planted. I’m not really sure what’s taking them so long, it’ll be sad if they open it in October because then it’ll be cold again. Afterwards I biked down a small industrial looking street (I guess it’s an extension of Schuylkill Avenue) which ended up in a really large train yard. It was awesome to see trains rolling by, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. People get real fussy when an over-curious cyclist ends up in a vast industrial site. 

After the second trip around FDR Park I biked past the stadium along Pattison Ave. It was during a Phillies game so there were a lot of people to dodge. I saw the beginnings of Philly Live, which is a retail and entertainment hub replacing the Spectrum. Originally proposed in the mid 2000s, the project was tabled due to economic conditions and recently began to move forward but only about a 10th of the original plan. It'll apparently open in 2012 and contain 45,000 square feet of retail/restaurant space. It’s exciting to see something move along that is not additional parking. I continued along Pattison until it turned into a Columbus Blvd, which is a very long, lonesome and truck–filled stretch. After reaching Pier 70 I ducked in along the big box stores to bike along the beginning of the Delaware River multipurpose path constructed a little over a year ago. The path follows the river’s edge and ends near Pier 53 Park which opened April, 2010. The park is an acre of native, waterfront vegetation along decaying piers and a portion of a concrete pad. The area is designed to allow plants to break up the impervious area over time and reclaim it. It’s a pretty awesome area for only costing the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation $570,000; although the wood fence is already starting to show weathering presumably due to a lack of staining. 

As always here are some stats of the past few weeks. 

Routes	Miles	Minutes	Speed	Calories Burned
6	63.4	273	13.9	3,261

These past few weeks I really increased the amount of South Philadelphia that I have reached by bicycle. So much so that Point Breeze and Grays Ferry are two of my most biked through neighborhoods. Impressive because Point Breeze is a little over one square mile.  With these mini-adventures I increased my area and percentage slightly to 29.06 sq miles or 20.26% . Make sure you check out the Geographic Analysis page for all the deets.