With more than 30% of Temple’s undergraduate student body walking or biking to campus daily, both university and local organizations have launched programs and proposals aimed to improve traffic safety in and around Main Campus.
Mayor Cherelle Parker signed a bill to authorize a bicycle lane on North 13th Street from Cecil B. Moore Avenue to Diamond Street on March 19. The bill was sponsored by Councilmember Jeffrey Young, the councilmember representing Temple’s district in City Hall.
The Philadelphia Parking Authority announced an initiative to install speeding violation cameras along Broad Street and near campus in November. Although PPA estimated its release in February, the cameras are not yet active. Three cameras will be installed near Temple’s Main and Health Sciences campuses, at Broad near Cumberland Street, Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Fairmount Avenue.
“The system has been approved by the state and each location is now going through the permitting process,” wrote a PPA spokesperson in an email to The Temple News. “Once all permits are approved, installation can begin. We anticipate the cameras to be activated sometime this summer.”
Vision Zero, a City of Philadelphia program working to eliminate traffic deaths completely, spearheads multiple initiatives for public safety including the bicycle lane bill and PPA’s speed cameras.
Several streets around campus are identified as part of the High Injury Network — the 12% of Philadelphia streets where about 80% of traffic deaths and injuries occur. Broad, Diamond, Norris, North 16th, 12th and 11th streets as well as Montgomery Avenue are part of the network in the immediate campus area, according to Vision Zero.
“One of the things we frequently see is these crashes, it’s not just speeding or a red light, but also a pedestrian wasn’t looking or is distracted,” said Jennifer Griffin, vice president for public safety, in an interview with The Temple News in November 2024. “We continue to do awareness and arrange events when we talk about safety, making sure you’re really paying attention when you get to the cross section.”
Allied Security personnel or Temple police officers station at popular pedestrian intersections to facilitate traffic in between class periods and other busy times. Intersections like North 13th Street near Montgomery Avenue, outside the Howard Gittis Student Center and on Polett Walk near 12th Street near the Bell Tower will typically feature officers stopping cars to let pedestrians pass.
An estimated 29% of the university walked to campus in 2022, a four percent increase since 2019. And the number of biking commuters reduced by two percent in the same period, from five to three percent, according to the Office of Sustainability’s 2023-24 annual report. Thirty-one percent of the community uses a car to get to campus and 16% take the subway, according to the report.
With a quarter of students walking to campus daily, some students voice concerns about lighting around popular off-campus housing areas.
“A lot of people live on that side between 18th and 15th Street,” said Gabriel Cesare, a junior international business major. “I feel like those streets should be much more well illuminated versus how much illumination there is on the actual campus. If you want to cater towards people being safer, I feel like that’s a good step to begin with.”
While most of the streets are well-lit between Broad Street and 18th Street, proper street lighting may be uncommon on side streets such as Bouvier, Gratz, Carlisle and Willington Streets. Temple encourages students to rent from off-campus properties that are part of the Best Nest program, a standard that requires the property to have adequate outdoor lighting.
Vision Zero’s program to assist with traffic safety culminates in an annual report that diagnoses the top issues Philadelphia aims to address. The 2024 report shows that Philadelphia has around eight deaths per 100,000 residents, higher than many other cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and New York City.
In January 2023, a pedestrian was killed after being struck by a motorist on Beasley’s Walk near Broad Street. Temple added a speed bump at the intersection after the incident, The Temple News reported. In June 2024, a 20-year-old Temple student was hit by a car at Broad Street near Fairmount Avenue, and later died of his injuries that evening, CBS reported.
“Temple doesn’t need to change everything overnight,” Cesare said. “But if they show they care about how we move around campus, that’s what matters most.”
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