Urban Cycle: Over the Ben Franklin Bridge! (Camden Part I)

A few weeks back I took an ambitious ride through New Jersey. It all started when I was flying into PHL and I noticed a distinctly planned neighborhood tucked between two marshy waterways and a park that juts out into the Delaware overlooking South Philadelphia. I immediately thought, “what a cool area to explore, I’ve never really been in New Jersey!” Well it turns out I know very little about New Jersey. I rode through Camden’s downtown, their civic and industrial waterfronts as well as some neighborhoods leading into Fairview (the distinctly planned neighborhood eluded to above) and from the there, into Gloucester City, NJ. Over the next few blog posts I’ll depict what I discovered.

Unfortunately, my camera broke half way through the ride which not only limits this series but future blog posts until I can buy a new one. However, with that sad fact behind me, below are the stats and a map of the ride in its entirety.

http://www.dailymile.com/people/Jerome9883/entries/8422896

Miles	Minutes	Speed	Calories Burned
18	105	10.3	1,264

For the beginning of this series on the Jersey –side of the Delaware there is no more appropriate landmark to start with but the Ben Franklin Bridge. It’s also very appropriate as this ride is foreshadowing my month of August. I’ll be crossing the bridge every weekday for the next three weeks in order to instruct, CYLCE camp. This camp is geared toward Camden youth and getting them comfortable with biking through the city and regional greenway network.

However, to the ride at hand; I live a short distance from the beginning of the bridge but as a cyclist it’s one of the most treacherous miles of biking in Center City. Not only are there cars whizzing by on 5^th, 6^th and 7^th Streets (the only viable options for getting to the bridge), it is damn near impossible for a new cyclist to figure out how to get to the one open walkway. On top of the confusing and fast moving traffic patterns there are “historic” street pavers EVERYWHERE. On 5^th Street for a block, on Chestnut Street for a block, and on the SIDEWALK to get to the bridge’s walkway! There should be a rule that if the street hasn’t had belgian block or cobblestone in the last 75 years then it doesn’t need it now.

The Ben Franklin Bridge is a large and old bridge. It was built between 1922 and 1926 as the first permanent pedestrian/automobile crossing between Philadelphia and New Jersey. The steel suspension bridge was originally named the Delaware River Bridge and was world’s longest suspension bridge until 3 short years later the Ambassador Bridge opened between Detroit and Canada. The bridge itself is 9,700 feet long (from entrance to entrance) or 1.8 miles. (However, as a bike travels the distance is only 7,800 feet or 1.5 miles). Rising from the city skyline, the bottom of the bridge reaches a height of 135 feet above the Delaware. It’s quite an engineering feat.

It is also quite a cycling feat.

As the bridge provides 135 feet clearance above the water, the pedestrian/bicycle path is at least 15-20 feet above the car deck at the center. This means that a cyclist reaches a height of 160 feet above the Delaware. After a few rough calculations I found that this means that there is an average grade of 4.1% on the Philadelphia side and 3.4% grade on the Camden side. The reason the grade is much less on the Camden side of the bridge is two-fold: 1) the walkway ends before the bridge does and one has to walk down a set of stairs and 2) the approach is longer on the Jersey side.

The bridge provides spectacular views of Philly, Camden and the Delaware River as well as some great 1920s architecture. About 2,000 feet from the Philadelphia entrance there is a plaza (or more like a wider sidewalk) around the bridge’s anchorage (where the suspension cables are anchored). It offers a detailed view of the bridge’s architecture as well as the ability to step out over the PATCO lines.

A few little known facts about the anchorages are: 1) there is an abandoned trolley terminal under the Philadelphia side; however it was never used as trolleys were becoming passé in the 1920s. 2) There are beautiful lobbies/rooms inside the pedestrian part of the anchorages that contain murals of various transportation modes throughout time. The public rooms were rarely used and are now completely abandoned.

Below are some of the vistas of Philadelphia from the bridge’s walkway:

From the anchorage plaza there is another 1,700 feet of climb before reaching the apex of the bridge. From there it’s smooth sailing until the steps on the Camden side.