Category Archives: Sustainability at Penn

September 15, 2011 · 3:30 pm

I Bike Philly

Author: Colin Hennessy

Philadelphia is a biker’s city. With more and more Center City streets making room for bike lanes, cyclists are able to traverse our city with increased ease and safety. Despite these advancements, what really excites me as a relatively new biker is the Schuylkill River Heritage Area Trail.

Each morning before work, well most mornings, my colleague and I meet and ride to the trail. Our morning routine includes a 10-mile journey to the Falls Bridge and back to the start of the trail near Spruce Street. The whole excursion takes about one hour (door-to-door). This bike friendly journey includes stunning scenery and views of the river. Long straight-aways provide many opportunities for sprinting, while one or two mild hills give that brief burning sensation in quad muscles. In addition, on the weekends we have extended our journey and ventured to Valley Forge.

The best news is the trail is minutes from Penn’s campus. All members of the Penn community are able to take full advantage of this trail. With the opening of Penn Park (today) the combined outdoor space in and around the Penn campus is extraordinary. Few urban schools can boast the amount of green space so easily accessible by their campus.

As late summer transforms to fall, I hope you will take full advantage of the moderate temperatures and lingering daylight that are made for long bike rides, riverside runs, or casual walks and talks. Philadelphia is a wonderfully accessible city and Penn is right at home here.

Make a plan to visit Penn Park and the Schuylkill River trail – before long your visits might become part of your daily routine, like mine.

1 Comment

Filed under Colin H., Penn Park, Philadelphia, Sustainability at Penn, The Penn Fund

Tagged as

August 16, 2011 · 8:02 am

Penn Saving the Planet, One Bike at a Time

Author: Stephanie Y., C’08

When I was an undergrad, I knew a number of students who rode their bikes regularly whether it was for commuting (biking to classes), for fun (biking to and from downtown), or for exercise (biking along the Schuylkill River and on Kelly Drive). Now I work full-time at Perelman School of Medicine (formerly known as Penn Med), and I am always pleasantly surprised to see how many employees also ride their bikes to and from Penn.

The bike racks by my building are always full by 9am, so people who show up five minutes late to work have to lock their bikes to trees. This does not seem environmentally-friendly to me, but as you can see, people do it!

The bike racks in front of my building are not even the most crowded on campus. You should go see the bike racks outside the Biomedical Library – I don’t even bother looking for a spot there.

So, you can imagine I was thrilled when I heard through the grapevine that some Penn alumni classes are working with The Penn Fund to donate new bike racks to Penn. Let’s hear it for Penn Alumni! Their mission is in line with Penn’s Green Campus Partnership and Reducing Emissions Initiative. Even though there are already many bike racks on campus, we definitely need more!

3 Comments

Filed under Alumni Perspective, Stephanie Y., Sustainability at Penn, The Penn Fund

Tagged as

June 14, 2011 · 8:23 am

Locust Walk Talk: Locust Walk Renovation

Author: Casey Ryan, C’95

As students, I’m sure that you have strolled along this major pedestrian thoroughfare at one point on another.  Now, the walkway is under construction starting with the 3600 block this summer and will continue to the 3800 and 3900 blocks this fall.

Locust Walk is the place to go to bump into other students and peers.  It is more than a walkway; it serves as a social and interactive path between college houses (a.k.a. dorms) and classrooms.  Each and every time during my senior spring semester I would run from my house on Sansom and hop on the Walk to get to my either my Linguistics or Business Italian class in Williams Hall, I would see several of my classmates and friends.  We would catch up on last week’s cast party or make plans for that weekend, and I would be inevitably late for class.  Yet, my Penn classmates and I weren’t the only things traveling along the walk.  The renovation includes the replacement of underground utilities and the paved surface.  In addition to the thousands of students, faculty and staff that traverse the 20 and ½ foot wide Walk, electricity, gas, water, telecommunications, and sewage all passed under our feet. This infrastructure will be improved during the renovations as well.

For now, though, the intensity of the work in a confined space requires that students, faculty and staff to be re-routed from the work area.  The temporary walkways provided by the contractor for safety, will have to serve as the major social conduit through campus.

For more articles about the Locust Walk Renovation, visit:

The Daily Pennsylvanian: Construction tears up Locust Walk

Under the Button: Locust Walk Is Getting All Torn Up This Summer

Facilities: Locust Walk Renovation

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

2 Comments

Filed under Alumni Perspective, Campus Life, Casey R., Locust Walk Talk, Sustainability at Penn, The Sweeten Life

Tagged as

May 13, 2011 · 7:43 pm

Bike It or Walk It for Prizes

Guest Author: Nicholas Mirra of the Bicycle Coalition

I am very familiar with the impressive volume of foot and bicycle commuting taking place in the Penn area every day. So, I’d like to share a fun and addictive program the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia is running this summer: The Commuter Challenge.

This free, ongoing event encourages people to walk or bike to work. Portland and Seattle do yearly Challenges, and now the Bicycle Coalition is bringing it to Philly. How does it work? Very simply. Register online and create or join a workplace team. Then, log commutes you take to and from work via foot or pedal power.

The Challenge runs from May 20th to August 20th, but registration is open all summer. Prizes are awarded to winning teams and participants are entered in raffles for great prizes. We will have pit stops, happy hours, and other events throughout the summer to celebrate the joy of human-powered commuting.

The Challenge has something for everyone:

* For exercisers: save time by combining your commute and your workout. Be surprised by how much more alert and less stressed you feel at work for having walked or biked to get there.
* For the environmentally-conscious: reduce your carbon footprint. Our website tells you how much CO2 emissions your human-powered commuting prevents.
* For peppy team-builders: build camaraderie by organizing an office or lab team.
* For ruthless competitors: challenge other individuals or teams for bragging rights and glory. A healthy excuse for being unnecessarily competitive.
* For stat heads: track commuting rates, miles traveled, updated leader boards, average commute lengths, and other statistics on the site.

Philadelphia’s prominence in the national bicycling community is growing rapidly. We believe Philadelphia has the populace, the weather, and the attitude to embrace foot and pedal-powered commuting on an even larger scale. The Challenge is a great way to get in this healthy and hearty habit, or to reward yourself for possessing such a positive pre-existing condition.

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia is an education and advocacy organization promoting bicycling in the region. Our initiatives and programs include Safe Routes Philly and Bike Philly. Learn more about us and local bicycling news online and follow us on Twitter.

Leave a comment

Filed under Guest blogger, Sustainability at Penn

Tagged as ,