A block in Fishtown didn’t qualify for a speed bump so neighbors tried installing their own

Weary of heedless drivers speeding down their kid-friendly block, residents of Crease Street in Fishtown concluded that speed bumps could help.

Turned out the tight-knit, one-way 1200 block doesn’t quite meet Philadelphia’s minimum width requirements for installation of traffic-calming devices. That 20 people under 18 live on the block didn’t seem to matter.

So neighbors, including those who helped create the popular Crease Street Garden, decided to go rogue. They supported an effort last year to buy two removable speed bumps meant for parking lots and place them on the pavement near the Thompson Street and Girard Avenue ends of the block.

Vehicles slowed down. Parents, their children, and older residents felt safer. But someone complained to the police, and the speed bumps were removed in February.

“They were truly a community effort, but they were temporary solutions,” said business owner and father of two Tony Colantonio, who has lived on the 1200 block since 2011.

“We’re a positive community, and we want positive, permanent solutions,” he said. “But we have absolutely no say about archaic laws that weren’t designed for traffic safety issues on streets where [population] density has increased in the last 10 years ... laws that were designed for a different city.”

Justine Miller, who lives on the block with her husband, Kyle, and their two children, said Crease Street “has the kind of fabric you want to preserve. This is a street that warrants speed bumps.”

Philly’s public conversation about cyclist and pedestrian safety tends to focus on calls for more protected bike lanes and more enforcement technologies, such as red-light and speed cameras.

» READ MORE: Broad Street — not Roosevelt Boulevard — is Philly’s most dangerous roadway, says new report

Last year 54 pedestrians and three cyclists were killed in the city due to what the nonprofit Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia describes as “traffic violence.”

But while conditions on Roosevelt Boulevard, Broad Street, Lincoln Drive, and other high-profile thoroughfares get lots of attention, officials said grassroots demand for small-scale traffic-calming efforts on pavement surfaces, such as speed bumps (a.k.a. speed cushions) and rumble strips, is robust across the city.

In 2024, the Philadelphia Streets Department installed 402 speed cushions citywide. More than 900 traffic-calming devices have been installed in the city’s 10 Council districts. Neighborhood Slow Zones are being implemented as part of the city’s Vision Zero program.

And the streets department has also sought to improve online and other elements of its application process for installation of such devices.

“There’s more transparency, but the process is still confusing,” said Nicole Brunet, the Bicycle Coalition’s policy director.

The coalition advocates for traffic calming and works to educate the public that speed cushions “may not always be the solution” for a particular location, she said. “There are more things they can ask for to slow down drivers.”

Brunet also said Fishtown’s complex intersections and dense mix of unusually wide, very narrow, and diagonal streets creates traffic-calming challenges.

Any residents can request a review of their street as part of the Philadelphia’s streets department Traffic Calming Program said Christopher Young, the department’s communications manager.

“Even if your street is marked as ineligible, you may still complete the 311 form and request a review,” he said.

Many design, engineering, and material considerations go into speed cushion installations, Young said, and the cushions differ in important ways from the speed bumps people normally think of.

“Residents changing our roadways on their own may end up legally liable if an injury or crash occurs,” he said.

The 1200 block of Crease “is one of the more neighbor-centric streets in the neighborhood,” Colantonio said.

Residents came together to transform a block into a garden after adjoining vacant lots began attracting illicit activity. They set up a public trust to acquire and oversee the property.

The garden, as well as the can-do spirit, may not have grown without Eusebio Canamas Batan, whom everyone called “Bonn” and who lived on the 1200 block with partner Randal Cowles for 26 years until his death last week.

“Bonn would clean the street religiously,” Colantonio said. “He was a big part of our coming together and deciding to make it safer.”

Cowles said the temporary speed cushions “were a little bit noisy, but they made the block a heck of a lot safer.”

And Bonn, his partner, always supported whatever he believed would make the 1200 block a better place, Cowles said.